In my travels, I often run into two seemingly unrelated conversations that I view as two sides of the same coin.  There is one set of people that talk about how their existing systems, processes and people need to evolve – increasingly, these people are using the term “modernization”.  On the other hand are the people working on various aspects of SOA, Web/Internet, Agile Methododologies, SaaS, Cloud Computing, etc.  When I ask the first group what a ‘modern’ set of systems, processes and people/skills look like, they rattle off pretty much the same list as the second set of folks.

The big difference is that the second set of folks are often starting in newer areas – like their enterprise’s web sites – whereas, the modernization set of folks is starting with longer standing systems often built on things like mainframes, COBOL, etc.  The fact that people focused on modernization need to deal with the longer standing systems as part of getting to SOA, Web, Agile, Cloud, Saas – led us to create an entire track of sessions dedicated to modernization. 

Dale Vecchio is the lead analyst on modernization, which has been a significant research initiative for us for quite some time.  Make sure to check out Dale’s sessions on:

• When the Software Outlives the Developers: Market Forces Driving IT Modernization
• Can SOA Save Your Legacy Applications
• Analyst/User Roundtable: Legacy Modernization Through SOA
• Analyst/User Roundtable: Mainframe Migration – When and How to Do It?
• Case Study Panel: SOA as a Legacy Application Extension Strategy
• Case Study Panel: Mainframe Migrations – For Better or Worse