Managing Legacy Data: A Strategic Approach for IT Leaders

By Terry Hackelman, SVP of SLED-West  

Public sector agencies must keep data for retention, bonds, grants, and regulatory reasons. The cost, resources, and risk of migrating or converting legacy data can be significant when implementing new systems. As a result, agencies choose not to migrate 100% of their legacy data and end up leaving the legacy systems in place solely for the occasional query.  At SDI, we understand the complexities involved in managing and migrating legacy data, and we offer solutions to ensure that your organization can leverage its data effectively. 

The Challenge of Legacy Data 

The challenge of maintaining these legacy systems to access data that was not converted includes ongoing software and hardware patching, maintaining vendor maintenance agreements, and ensuring staff expertise with skills to use the old legacy systems to retrieve data.  Oftentimes, organizations underestimate the true costs and staff resources to maintain a legacy system for the sole purpose of accessing old data – which may or may not be needed or provide the value perceived.  

Importance of Data Strategy and Governance is Exploding 

As agencies implement new applications and automate processes, data strategy and governance are essential to support integration, data analytics/reporting, data integrity, and protection. As agencies increasingly move on-premises data repositories to cloud-based solutions, the fragmentation of data increases the complexity of enterprise data strategy, governance, and management. Harnessing the value of legacy data, which is not migrated to the current transactional applications, requires a detailed understanding of the legacy data and how to access the data when needed without the hassles of keeping staff current on legacy applications that are rarely used. 

SDI works closely with our clients to understand their data and reporting needs. We help our clients plan and complete data migration when replacing legacy systems. As a result, SDI is aware of the cost, resources, and complexity of migrating legacy data and works with clients to determine how much data should be converted. Recognizing the need to continue to access unconverted data, we developed ArchiveLink to allow agencies to decommission old legacy systems without the fear of losing unconverted data.   

ArchiveLink Banner

Benefits of Using ArchiveLink 

  • Decommission Legacy Systems: Say goodbye to ongoing maintenance costs 
  • Reduce Cybersecurity Risks: Move to a secure and supported platform 
  • Intuitive Interface: Minimal training is required with our user-friendly interface 
  • Streamline Operations: Simplify management tasks like backup, recovery, and patching 
  • Advance Reporting: Utilize tools like Microsoft SSRS for custom reporting 
  • User Satisfaction: Eliminate the need for staff to navigate outdated interfaces 

If your organization is struggling with legacy data trapped in outdated systems, consider partnering with SDI to unlock the full potential of your data. Contact us today to learn how ArchiveLink can transform your data management.