NCC Members have free access to these Guidelines on the NCC Membership website.

The potential to leverage IT services and business information has greatly increased over the last decade. The concepts of joined-up IT and web services are powerful tools for business innovation. However, uptake of these technologies is often hindered by existing inflexible systems and high costs. A company's core systems are often its biggest revenue generators and it is these that potentially offer the biggest benefits as a result of change, They are, unfortunately, also the systems that have the biggest potential risk associated with modification.

Maintaining and modifying IT systems is currently expensive. There is theoretical point in the future when legacy system spend will match IT budgets as 'Legacy Crisis' by Robert Seacord in his book 'Modernizing Legacy Systems'. It seems unlikely this scenario will actually occur but it is a grim warning as to the direction taken by the IT industry and the immense costs that legacy is exacting on its business.

It is worth companies taking an introspective look at their Legacy Estates and, going forwards, how these are going to deliver business value at affordable costs. Business should be aware of the characteristics of legacy and how they can utilize modern architectures to isolate and migrate legacy to cheaper, more flexible applications.

In evaluating Legacy Estates, companies and organisations need to understand:

• What a legacy system is
• Modern requirements of IT
• Legacy wrapping or modernization: 'Cash Cow' or 'Haemorrhaging' system?
• IT architecture and legacy