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)

Security Considerations


Information security is a quality attribute that can't easily be retrofitted. Concerns such as authorization, authentication, access, and data protection need to be defined early so they can influence the solution's design.

However, many aspects of information security aren't static. External security threats are constantly evolving, and the maintainers of a system need to keep up-to-date to analyze them. This may force change on an otherwise stable system.

Functional changes to a legacy system also need to be analyzed from a security standpoint. The initial design may have taken the security requirements into consideration (a quality attribute workshop is a good way to capture these) but are they reconsidered when features are added or changed? What if a sub-component is replaced or services are moved to a remote location? Is the analysis reperformed?

It can be tempting to view information security as a macho battle between evil, overseas (people always think they come...