"Let's go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about yesterday." — Steve Jobs
Legacy SaaS migration involves taking proprietary software running on a local network and moving it to the cloud. The path to success is littered with obstacles — most of which reside not in the code itself, but in migrating the people and the culture alongside the software.
In one legacy point-of-sale migration, we needed the SaaS platform to interface with peripheral devices already in use at the client's locations. The development team was based in India. Many of the devices were old, boutique, or both — and couldn't be sourced in India. We shipped physical hardware to the development team. It was held in Indian customs for over four months while bureaucrats debated the correct valuation of equipment with no comparable reference point. I learned that government bureaucracy is universal.
As Mike Tyson famously observed, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." I am continually surprised when clients are surprised by the difficulties that emerge in a legacy migration. The transition almost always reveals additional features to add and legacy functions to rethink — both of which extend the timeline.
Unique Considerations For Legacy Migration
◆ Hardware audit. Identify all current hardware that is not plug-and-play with a cloud-native solution. Budget accordingly. ◆ Third-party software inventory. Assess every piece of software currently used by end users, including legacy tools that may themselves be out of support. ◆ Network architecture review. Even though the SaaS solution is cloud-based, certain elements may still depend on the local network. Identify these dependencies early.