Book Image

Working with Legacy Systems

By : Robert Annett
Book Image

Working with Legacy Systems

By: Robert Annett

Overview of this book

The IT industry is constantly evolving with the introduction of new technologies. While it is important to keep up with advancements, maintaining legacy systems is equally necessary to ensure that the infrastructure of your organization functions to the best of its ability. Sound knowledge of techniques that can be used for maintaining legacy systems can help you avoid common pitfalls. The book begins with a quick overview of what a real legacy system looks like, how it works, and common issues that may be faced when trying to maintaining it. You'll then explore the architecture of a legacy system in detail and understand each of its components. As you progress, you'll discover a variety of techniques for analyzing a legacy system and how to apply them. Once you get to grips with the security constraints associated with legacy systems, you'll explore ways to secure them. Finally, you'll be able to easily make changes in legacy systems to enhance their performance. By the end of this book, you’ll have developed the skills and confidence to work with legacy systems and efficiently maintain them.
Table of Contents (7 chapters)

Architectural Description and Review


When designing the architecture for a Greenfield system, you periodically perform architectural reviews to determine whether it can deliver the user's requirements. For a legacy system, you know it works (even if it has issues) but you need to determine how it works. Even with documentation, there is likely to be a gap between that and reality. You start with two extra important pieces of information, which are the real stakeholders and artefacts of the running system itself.

The International Standard for "Systems and software engineering — Architecture Description" is ISO42010. I will be using the terminology and processes from this standard where possible. Don't let this panic you! This is a lightweight standard and imposes no restrictions on your processes or development methodology. When creating a Greenfield Architectural Description, you will (usually) perform the following steps:

  • Identify stakeholders

  • Identify stakeholder's concerns

  • Identify functionality...