We conducted a details legacy system retirement study for one of the largest chemical manufacturers.
The scope of the engagement included review and plan the retirement of over 200 systems. We prepared a questionnaire and discussed it with all business users.
Based on business feedback and our internal analysis, we grouped all the legacy systems into three different groups.
•The first group of 25 or so legacy systems were grouped based on technical type of data, low risk, and ease of retiring.
•The second and third groups consisted remaining systems that hosted business/IP data with higher sensitivity.
All legacy systems data were evaluated against seven different alternative systems for long-term storage of active data and disposition at a future date - in terms of cost, maintenance efforts, reporting flexibility/ease of use, ease of tagging for retention, and presence of the tool in company’s software portfolio. The toolbox also included proprietary, and Open source systems.
The analysis includes a risk analysis of 1) technical risk 2) risk of data loss 3) functional impairment risk 4) risk of cost of incompliance.
The implementation project plan was also provided for each of the phases. The overall assessment was delivered mostly remotely in about three months timeframe.