(In this SmartBits, Zulfikar Deen outlines “The challenges of legacy code “. The video is at the end of this blog)

We move quite slowly compared to how the industry moves. It is like a different cog in a gearbox where one actually moves very slowly and the other one is moving really fast, but there is a need to have a proper connection in place. If you are looking at the quality of the whole system, you need to look at holistically. When integrating with the slow-moving system, how do you ensure the data moves in the right speed, right velocity and it is tested correctly?

The biggest challenge would be that, in the existing system, the data may not be good. There could be a  lot of garbage in the data because of usage of system for several years. When you are integrating with the newer technology, or a wonderful new system and post plugging in, if that expects good clean data, it is not going to happen. It’s going to be very challenging in terms of fidelity, velocity and data cleanup.

Partner talks about jQuery or possessing technologies like  ML engine. My internal team may not be able to connect with them. There are so many technologies out there, my internal team is focused on making sure my system is running operations, so that becomes the primary focus. 

Technology may be very interesting, but they may not be able to connect to what you are speaking. As a partner, we need to make sure that it is holistically tested. It is very critical to hand-hold the internal team when doing the integration pieces, during the testing time, operationalizing time and support time.