Technology is evolving at a breathtaking pace.

Every month we witness one techno-innovation or the other that overwhelms us, leaving us with a wide spectrum of applications that might have been super-essential some time ago but are nothing short of a legacy burden now. Sadly the overwhelming number of such systems and the budget devoted to them make us think twice before discarding them completely.

This is where legacy system modernisation comes into play.

Outmoded systems, whether they are a couple years old or belonging to the past decade, can be upgraded using such top class modernisation services. Whether you want to move to the Cloud/SaaS model, micro services architecture or get the systems fully re-engineered, legacy system modernisation can help you be in sync with the current technology trend.

These alluring services are tempting enough to avail, but seeing how time-consuming and costly this affair is, we cannot fully jump into this process without knowing whether our systems actually need modernisation or are old-enough to be discarded. Spending your fortune on nothing doesn’t really make sense.

Hence, we bring you this list. Developed using our years of expertise in the field, these points have helped a lot of different organisations ferret out the legacy systems that need a makeover!

10 Telltale Signs that your Legacy System Needs Modernisation

1. Performance Issues (Slow and cumbersome)

Probably the first thing that makes you feel like ‘Yes, it’s time for a system up-gradation’.

In this 5G world, slow systems add on to your already high work pressure. Even a minute lost could cost us a lot. Imagine frequent hanging of applications when you are conducting a transaction worth millions. Frustrating, right?

If your system is dead slow and faces multiple glitches while working and has been such since long, it’s safe to say that it is asking for an up gradation.

Quality issues can be a challenge and can be corrected with quality management and testing, but if you pride your systems for their supreme quality, you might have to get them re-engineered for an improved performance and efficiency.

2. 3rd Party Software Support Failure

Dependency is not a bad thing, but if it directly affects the working of your software, you might want to re-think. Many organisations rely on the third-party software to run effectively and thus, face the huge risk of falling if the vendor is slacking on timely maintenance and updates.

Things get worse if your provider company gets trapped in an unavoidable situation, like an acquisition or merger. They will undoubtedly face a huge shift in their company policies, and chances of them terminating the software support are pretty high.

This is the cue for you to reconsider your service provider, frankly.

3. Device Dependent & Immobile Systems

If your software is incapable of being accessed from anywhere but the device it is installed in, you might want to get it upgraded. Immobility is just not an option in this highly competitive world. On-premise software is good, but it lacks the dynamics of a cloud-based system.

In fact, just introducing yourself to enterprise mobility strategy can help you increase your organisation efficiency to multiple folds. Give your legacy applications a mobile touch, if you can’t implement a full-blown modernisation framework.

4. Incompatibility with the Modern Software

There are loads of integration challenges associated with SAAS/Cloud up gradation.

Compatibility matters a lot, whether it’s personal, or well, technical. Most of the old systems don’t accept such changes easily and need a number of customisations to have new tools work effectively on them. You might want to reconsider spending a hefty amount on them.

For a smooth business process, assure the tools you are trying to adapt integrates with your legacy software without glitches.

5. Difficulty in Getting Required Skilled Labor for your Systems

Before the much-required technology boom, the software systems required a really high-skilled workforce that could handle the complicated systems aptly. However, hiring such years-trained labor for our legacy systems in today’s time is like searching water in a desert, possible but pretty challenging and expensive.

This reason should be enough for you to adopt system modernisation. If you hire inexperienced staff to make the outdated system somehow, it might affect your organisation’s efficiency.

6. They No Longer Meet your Requirements

Quite obviously, why would you want to keep a software in its native state if it no longer meets your requirements? It might have been a lifesaver back in the days, but you need to move on now or it may cost you revenue and efficiency. Typewriters and cordless phones are nice but smartphones are nicer.

7. Nonscalable and Inflexible Systems that are a Hindrance to Business Growth

We would definitely not want to keep a system or a software that is highly stiff and not scalable and cannot keep up with the constantly evolving business atmosphere. They might keep you back from increasing your ROI, being a hindrance to your growth.

You have two options now. You can either completely discard them or make them go through a legacy modernisation.

8. Weaving Value additions is almost Impossible

As explained above, legacy applications pose the biggest challenge in terms of flexibility and adaptability. Such systems might refuse to take up any value additions other than their core functionality, whether it is due to the outdated technology stack or a complicated architecture.

If your system requires more time and effort to adapt, it’s time for you to avail legacy modernisation.

9. Are Vulnerable to Cyber Security Breaches

Cyber breaches are increasing at a rapid pace, to nobody’s surprise. And more often than not, old and outdated systems are the ones that fall into the hacker’s trap easily. Old encryption algorithms can no longer help you protect your beloved systems, and you might find difficulty in looking for updated security patches for them.

10. High Operating & Maintenance Costs

All the points mentioned above can truly tell you how expensive keeping legacy systems in their native state could be. Add in maintenance and operating costs and game becomes even more challenging.

In clear words, if you have difficulty in operating your software and keeping it running at all times, you might want to adopt legacy system modernisation.

It is a given that running your business on such out-of-date legacy systems can lead you nowhere. They hardly contribute to ROI and even take up precious office space to no avail. Hence, legacy system modernisation is an important part of any organisation. Implement it well and you will be able to mitigate business risks effectively.

The post Legacy Systems Modernisation: How to know if it’s finally time for you to upgrade your outdated software? appeared first on Classic Informatics.

Lack of Planning:
The most common mistake is to not plan the layout of the website properly. This directly affects your CSS code too. So pick up your pen and paper and start writing down your vision of the website. Write down even the minutest of details like how do you want certain element in a web page to behave when live.

Background Images:
Another common mistake that CSS developers make is using a background image that is bigger than what the browser is capable of handling. As a result the image becomes blurred and the image doesn’t even the serve the purpose for which it was used in the first place.

Using a lot of CSS files:
There are many CSS files available but that doesn’t mean you use as many as you can. That’s not a good practice to follow. Instead use a schema where only 1 or 2 CSS files can accommodate the entire data. This will make that the browser doesn’t have to send 10 different requests for 10 different files which improves the overall performance of the design.

Using Animations just for the heck of it:
Animation is one of the most powerful ways of communicating one’s brand’s essence to its target audience effectively. But it is not the only way. Both HTML5 and CSS3 allow you to add animation but before you decide to use it, ask yourself whether you have a good reason for it. Use animation only if required otherwise it will make your web page slower and might also malign the design layout of the web page.

Leaving White Spaces:
Many CSS coders leave white spaces between elements thinking they might have to add something in the future. But once the complete development has been finalized they forget to remove the white spaces. This only results in unnecessary memory being used which only makes your website heavier and messes up with the performance. And you don’t want that, do you?

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Once you make up your mind to partner with an offshore web development agency, start doing a research of all the available options and make a list of the best ones. Now, that you have narrowed down to a few names, compare their services, prices and reviews as much as you can. At the end of it, you will be sure which agency to hire. But don’t get too comfortable. Your app idea can be a million dollar idea. So you have to participate in every stage of development and we are listing down a few ways in which you make sure that you get the most out your outsourced app development project.

Here are a few pointers:

• Collaboration between the business leaders and technical experts is a must. This is because both, the back-end engineering and the front-end experience should have a unified vision in order to create a magical user experience. For that reason, a developer should consider the end-user experience while developing and the designer should figure out how to present the features of the application in an intuitive manner while designing it.
• Even before you decide upon your offshore partner, you must prepare a list of requirements and features that you want in your app. So, when you approach an agency with these requirements, the quote they will provide you with will be much more precise.
• So you have decided upon your offshore partner and the quote has also been agreed upon. The next thing is to segment the project into phases together. A well-defined roadmap ensures business requirements are achieved and more room for improvements in the final product.
• Set deadlines and make sure that your offshore web development agency abides by them too. A good agency doesn’t need to be told about this because they very well know that setting deadlines and envisioning a clearly defined scope of development only leads to the timely launch of the app, which is important for their client’s business.
• As a business leader, you must invest a significant amount of your time in providing feedback and assessing the progress of your project. Most of the agencies follow the agile methodology for web development which makes infinite room for improvements and refinement of the final product. So, whenever you offshore partner delivers a sprint, make sure to test it yourself and never hesitate to ask for any improvements that you feel will improve the final product.

The post Make The Most Out Of Your App Development With A Trusted Offshore Web Development Agency appeared first on Classic Informatics.

The first and the most obvious change we found in the updated OS are the fresh aesthetics. Everything from setup menu to the app drawer, notification shade, animation and icons looks new and pleasing. The significant shift in the design will be evident on Nexus devices because most of the manufacturers use custom skins to change the look of the operating system. Another feature worthy to notice here is the dynamic new touch experience you will see on your Android device in the form of a transparent gray shading on the screens that moves as you move your fingers on the screen. The Material Design makes the new Android look fabulously refreshing without losing the familiar Android experience that we all are pretty used to.

Another significant change we noticed in is in the way the notifications panel functions in the new Android 5.0 Lollipop. So, you can now view and respond to messages directly from your lock screen. Incoming calls won’t interrupt what you are doing on your device. You will enjoy the freedom to choose to answer a call or ignore it to continue doing what you are doing. You also have the freedom to hide sensitive content and prioritize or turn-off the app notifications completely.

The new Android OS comes with a longer battery life. The battery saver features now extend the time for which the devise can still be in use by 90 long minutes. When you charge the device, you will be notified about the estimated time left to fully charge the device as well as the estimated time left on your device before you charge it again.

Keeping your stuff safe and sound will become easier with Android 5.0 Lollipop. The new devices will come with encryption automatically turned on for protecting the data stored in any lost or stolen devices. SELinux will keep a close check on applications against possible vulnerabilities and malware.

Another feature added to the new OS is the device sharing feature. Just like iOS 8, the Android users will be able to enjoy more flexible sharing with family and friends. You can choose what you want and the information that you want to share with your friends and family when sharing your device with them. Screen pinning will make that possible.

There are many more exciting features that are still to be explored in the new Android 5.0 Lollipop. Wait for the final release for your smartphone devices and we are sure you will be surprised with the new updated OS. Till then just wait and read all about it!

The post Android 5.0 Lollipop – Fresh Design, Features and More! appeared first on Classic Informatics.

#1. Features
Do a quick research on all the eCommerce platforms and find out the one which has all the features you need to have in your eCommerce portal. Look for features like themes, scope for customization, support for selling subscriptions / digital products, etc. These are the basic features most of the eCommerce businesses look for. But if your product is a bit different and need a custom feature then you might want add some functionality on your own, which your chosen platform must support.

#2. Self-hosted or Hosted
You have the option of having a self hosted or a hosted eCommerce website and both have their benefits. A self-hosted website gives more freedom but is expensive to set up. Whereas on the other hand, a hosted website is quick and inexpensive but lacks in features. You need to make a decision depending upon what your requirements are, the business objective you need to achieve and the budget you have to make it all possible with.

#3. Cost
An eCommerce website is not a type of website that you can set up and then forget about. You need to take into account both, Initial costs and On-going costs. Initial cost depends greatly upon the type of website you are looking for in terms of features. If you go for a self-hosted website you can easily add up features to the free software as long as you are not looking for some highly evolved features. If you are looking for such features then go for a hosted website.

Another thing to worry here are the on-going costs which can be either in the form of paying a developer / applying updates when the need arises (in case of self-hosted) or a monthly fee / per sale fee (in case of hosted).

#4. Security
Security is the utmost concern with an online store. There is a reason why some eCommerce platforms are the most trusted. And that reason is the excellent security they offer. It is important to choose a platform that is secure, but what is even more important is to make sure that you are following the necessary steps to secure it properly.

The post Choosing The Right eCommerce Platform For Your eCommerce Store appeared first on Classic Informatics.

A new business website cannot operate efficiently if you have not added at least some modules to it. You can find many Drupal modules according to the specific function that you are looking to add to your website. In this blog post we are highlighting 5 Drupal modules that we love and have direct experience of working with, in most of our projects. Here’s the list:

#1 Module : Pathauto
Drupal 7 and the subsequent upgraded platforms come with the feature of human readable URLs. But to automatically generate them you might need the Pathauto module. This nice-to-have-but-not-a-must-have module works by creating automatic URL aliases based upon tokens that you set in the configuration. In simpler words, with Pathauto enables your Drupal website to automatically tweak the URL and lets it replace spaces and unnecessary words like ‘the’ from the URL.

#2 Module : Administration Menu
This, we feel, is one of the most important modules for website administrators and developers as it gives them the power to monitor and manage the website. Moreover, with the Administration Menu module, you can navigate to the admin menu any time via the smart menu bar that appears on the top, thus saving your valuable time.

#3 Module : WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is a Drupal module that lets you edit or add text in a normal format rather than in an HTML. WYSIWYG doesn’t work by itself, but allows you to add content editors who can edit the website with simple editing tools like bold, underline, italics just like they are used to do in a normal word document.

#4 Module : Google Analytics
Google Analytics is undoubtedly one of the most popular tool for tracking the traffic of the websites. And this is also an important tool if you are a webmaster. This module will help you to directly put and edit the Google Analytics code into your website. This will save you from finding those pages and places where you need to put the tracking code.

#5 Module : Meta Tags
The Meta Tags module is an important module from SEO perspective. It lets you to configure meta tags for your website at both individual and global levels. The Meta Tags module adds meta tags such as title, descriptions, keywords, and many more to make your page well optimised for the search engine.

We think that these 5 modules really help enhance the Drupal functions, features, and grant your websites the power to do many incredible tasks.

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You may have a variety of features in your enterprise application and most businesses stress more on customized solutions which help meet their specific business requirements. But it becomes increasing important for businesses to determine what elements they want to have in their Enterprise Mobile Application to ensure that it becomes a sure shot success. We have created a list to make things easy for you.

Here are some of the elements that you need to know and be absolutely clear about to make an awesome enterprise mobile app –

• You need to know who is going to be the end user (read target audience) of your app. This is the question which you primarily need to ask yourself. Answering this question will help you define the features you want your enterprise mobile app to have so that your business goals can also be achieved.
• The next thing you need to pay attention to is to decide upon the platform on which you will develop the application. There are a variety of mobile platforms are available such as iOS, Android, Windows, etc., but you need to decide upon one on the basis of user majority.
• The agenda to be taken in hands now is the decision regarding the type of mobile application you will be developing – native, web or hybrid. This becomes easy since you already know who your target audience is and what their requirements are. If yours’ is a low-end user then a thin client app is more suitable and vice versa.
• Shedding all your money is not a wise thing to do. What would be wise is using your money intelligently. You need to assess the app development cost for yourself. Android is an open source platform so may come as an inexpensive resource and you may consider it for your application. But if your target audience is not using Android phones, then what’s the point of wasting all the money. It’s decision time!
• Security and scalability are two important aspects that make an enterprise mobile application awesome. Nobody wants to compromise on these two things.

The post What Does It Takes To Make An Awesome Enterprise Mobile App? appeared first on Classic Informatics.

You might want to start with searching for a good consultant or a consulting firm, which is a very good practice. But you must also make up a mind and do a bit of research for your own sake to come at a conclusion as to what you actually want out of the technology. What is it that you aim to achieve with it? Ask yourself questions. Think about the situation you are in and ask the following questions:

• Are you familiar with the technology you want to use?
• Have you ever asked someone to build a product for you before? If yes, how was the experience?
• Do you already have a host for your website? If yes, which technology does it support?
• Ask in your network if somebody can help you with building your product?

The next step is to decide upon the budget. When you are making the choices, just keep in mind that these very choices are going to cost you a great deal of money in order to turn your idea a reality. What follows next to making a decision is buying development licenses, IDE licenses and changing your hosting server or building your own application server locally or taking things to the cloud. A better alternative is to hire people who use the technology you are actually thinking of going ahead with.

After you are clear about these things hire a consulting firm who you think will not give a bad advice. But this needs to be done with utmost care. Many times it has been seen that the consultant might land you in a ruckus by giving you a wrong advice. What’s even worse is that he might be the only one who can get you out of the ruckus. Now, you don’t want to be trapped in an expensive and tense relationship with a consultant who lands you in a mess.

Choosing a technology for your project is not as easy as ordering a pasta. It might seem a bit like a minefield with all those technology options out there when you actually don’t know which one might be the one for you and which one might blow you. But this shouldn’t stop you from going ahead with your idea.

Remember, be wise and never stop dreaming!

The post Choosing The Right Technology For Your Startup appeared first on Classic Informatics.

Before you take the leap, you need to be sure why you are doing it. Do you need to change the architecture of your application, or you need to upgrade your application, or you feel it is finally time to implement the hybrid networks in your firm. This will solve half of your problem. The rest of it will be solved if you have the right tools, the right information and the right team on your side.

Let’s look at all these points in details since they are what you should need to know about as somebody contemplating the decision of moving to the clouds:

#1. Know your tools right. If you do know them then there’s no stopping from a smooth cloud migration. One of our personal favourites is the Setup Assistant. It helps you gather all the information you need about the configuration of your environment and helps you in finding the best deployment path.

#2. Next thing you need to be absolutely clear about the requirements and the specific needs you want to address with your cloud migration. If you are clear about this then you can choose which cloud technology to use and what will come with it – the good and the limits, all of it. Each solution has some different to offer, so you need to find which one caters to your specific needs.

#3. Make one thing clear in your mind that not all migrations are the same. Do a research and look for customer testimonials on the different cloud service providers. Find out which company is good at which type of cloud migration. Some service providers may be good at hybrid; some may take a lot time to migrate all your operations; and there may be some who can do it quickly. Whichever service provider you hire just be careful while choosing.

#4. Once you are done with the above mentioned pointers, all you are left with is migration. Which is not easy and chances are you are going to need help for that. Migration needs a lot of skills, that too of diverse nature, to do. There are many companies who offer a full team of professionals who can do the task for you. You just need to find the right partner.

The post Migrating to Cloud? Here’s What You Need To Know appeared first on Classic Informatics.

What is NoSQL?

A NoSQL database environment is a non-relational and largely distributed database system. It enables rapid, ad-hoc organization of data. It is also very useful to analyze high volume of disparate data types. But what needs to be made clear here is that NoSQL encompasses a wide variety of different database technologies and is not a single beast.

These different database technologies were developed in response to the rising volume of data that was stored about the users, objects and products. Another reason was that the frequency in which these data were accessed also increased over time. To improve the performance and processing needs of the database system, the NoSQL was developed. These are referred to as cloud databases, non-relational databases and Big Data databases.

The most common types of NoSQL Databases

The most common categories of NoSQL available and widely used today by many are listed below:

• Key-Value Store: These databases are designed for storing your data in a schema-less way. The data within it consists an indexed key and a value, hence the name. Common examples of this type of database are Cassandra, Azure Table Storage (ATS).
• Column Store: These store data as columns which makes aggregation fast. But you still have to do object – table modelling and mapping by yourself. Examples include BigTable and HyperTable.
• Document Database: These databases expand on the basic idea of key-value stores. These databases store application information in logical aggregates. Take a scenario where there would be a lot of tables, requiring a lot of joins to pull back an aggregate. Common examples of this type of databases include MongoDB and CouchDB.
• Graph Database: These are based on the graph theory. Graph databases are designed for data whose relations are well represented as a graph. Examples are Neo4J and Polyglot.

Why use NoSQL?

There are many reasons why many are opting for NoSQL databases today. It offers benefits to both, developers as well as the businesses who are need of a strong database system. Here are some reasons that totally make NoSQL a great choice for your next project.

• It improves the programmer’s productivity by letting him / her to choose a database that better matches the application needs that he / she is working on.
• It improves the data access performance since it is capable of handling larger data volumes. So, it reduces latency and improves throughput.
• Most of the NoSQL databases are developed and known to tackle particular, often extreme challenges.
• NoSQL systems, such as Hadoop are capable of handling the volumes of ‘big data’ as compared to what even the biggest of RDBMS.
• NoSQL databases use a number of low cost commodity servers to manage huge volumes of data and transaction, allowing you to store and process more data at a much lower cost.
• NoSQL databases have more relaxed data model restrictions, which is always a good thing.

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