We’ve got IT modernization all wrong.

The future, as everyone tells us, is about digital transformation.  The modern way to do things is no-code, serverless, and cloud-native. Anything not run by DevSecOps on Kubernetes is technical debt. Since every company is now a tech company, you should modernize by migrating from your old, legacy systems into modern platforms architected using cutting-edge technology.

What you’ve got are horses. Legacy systems. Old. Kludgy. Manual.  Ugly stuff like 40-year-old mainframes running COBOL, and airline check-in systems still running Windows XP. It’s an embarrassment! Replace everything legacy now!

What you need are spaceships.  Modern. New. Agile. Automated.  Ditch the mainframe and go with serverless COBOL. Put Kubernetes in everything. Add voice-activated artificial intelligence to your toilet.

You’re way behind, because everyone else is already using nothing but spaceships, while you’re moseying along with your old horses.

In your defense, you’re probably in the midst of rolling out one or two spaceships of your own. Those marquee, CEO-inspired projects.  Visionary transformations.  Like your “2020 Vision” project, which sounded way cooler back in 2017, but now just reminds everyone that you’re on year 5 of the 2-year rollout.  And shhhhh, you’re not supposed to admit that you’re just replacing an inadequate legacy system with an inadequate modern system.

So you feel bad.  And embarrassed.  And alone.

Well, don’t.  You’ve been duped into a false choice between “spaceships” and “horses”.

Spaceships should be visionary, groundbreaking…and extremely rare.  Spaceships fail a lot, but that’s a feature, not a bug:  Building spaceships is about learning, not really about reaching the destination.  Also, the technology and skills for building spaceships are spread unequally around the IT industry.

And those legacy systems, the horses?  You know, the stuff that works, that’s well understood.  Your organization is filled with institutional knowledge about how to use your legacy systems. Everyone knows what they can do, and they know what they can’t. For the most part, they get their job done. 

By the way, labeling your system “legacy” is actually a modern thing to do. The first known use of the word legacy as an adjective, as in “legacy system,” was in 1984.

Yes, some horses should be replaced.  Yes, you should take advantage of some new, modern technology.  But modernization should not be defined as the process of replacing your horses with spaceships. Modernization comes from managing dependencies on legacy systems as new technology is rolled out.  And that means most of your horses should be adequately maintained and appreciated, not hidden out of embarassment in a basement closet.

After all, the country that has the most spaceships today also has the most horses.

So abandon the pretense of conflict between modern and legacy.