How to update your organisation’s technology step by step in 2026
Nowadays, many large companies find themselves at a crossroads. On one hand, they have the urgent need to run: they want to implement Artificial Intelligence (AI), launch new mobile applications, and offer immediate responses to their customers. On the other hand, they have a huge weight holding them back: their legacy systems.
Those programs and databases that have been running for decades are the heart of the business, but they are slow and difficult to change. If they aren’t updated, the company gets left behind. But, if you try to change them all at once, the risk of everything stopping is extremely high.
The history of technology is full of failed projects that tried to wipe the slate clean. The good news is that it is no longer necessary to risk it all. Today there is a way to modernize technology step by step, safely and without stopping the business.
In this article, we will explain simply how to achieve that smooth transition using intelligent strategies that protect your current systems while you build the future.
Using old and new systems doesn’t benefit you
A few years ago, it became fashionable to divide company technology into two groups. Group 1 was in charge of maintaining old and stable systems (like accounting or inventory), and Group 2 was dedicated to innovating and creating new and fast things.
Although it sounded good in theory, in practice this created problems. The innovators went very fast, but when they needed data from the old systems, everything slowed down. The teams didn’t understand each other.
Towards 2025, the trend has changed. The goal is no longer to have two speeds, but for the entire company to be more agile. The idea is to modernize old systems so they are capable of keeping up with new ones. We want the heart of the company to be as robust as a safe, but as flexible as a startup.
The “Progressive Change” Strategy
How do you change a plane’s engine mid-flight? You don’t change it all at once; you do it piece by piece. In the software world, this is called the Strangler Fig pattern, but we can simply call it progressive substitution.
Instead of throwing the old system in the trash and writing a new one from scratch (which is extremely expensive and risky), we build the new system around the old one.
It works like this:
- The Intermediary: We place an intelligent “gateway” between users and your systems. At first, this door sends everything to the old system, as always.
- Piece by piece: You start creating small new parts. For example, if you have a sales system, maybe you first modernize only the “create an order” part.
- The Redirect: You configure the gateway so that, when someone wants to create an order, it sends them to the new part. For everything else, it continues to send them to the old system.
- The Replacement: Little by little, you repeat this with all functions until the old system no longer does anything and can be turned off.
The great advantage is safety. If the new part fails, you simply redirect traffic back to the old one in a matter of seconds. The user doesn’t even notice.
How to protect your data when migrating to the cloud. The Technological “Airbag”
One of the biggest fears when connecting a modern application (like a mobile App with millions of users) to an old system (like a banking Mainframe) is that the old system won’t withstand the pressure and will crash.
This is where the concept of the “Airbag” comes in. It is a safety mechanism that prevents the old system from becoming saturated.
How does it work simply? Imagine the old system is a library where there is only one librarian (the system) and many people want to read the same book at once. If everyone enters at once, the library collapses.
The “Airbag” does the following:
- Silent reading: Instead of going in to bother the librarian every time, we put a “spy” who notes every change that occurs in the books (a new record, an update). This is done without the old system exerting itself.
- Real-time copy: Those changes are sent to a new and modern database, designed to receive millions of visits.
The result is that your mobile App or your AI consults the modern copy, which is incredibly fast, and leaves the old system alone doing its main job without getting saturated.
Operational Grid Layer (OGL): Your Universal Connector
If you have many different systems (one for sales, another for warehouse, another for customers) and each speaks a different language, connecting them is a headache.
Here appears the Operational Grid Layer (OGL). Think of it as a universal translator and organizer.
Instead of connecting every system with every system (which creates a mess of wires), everyone connects to the OGL.
- Standardizes: It doesn’t matter where the customer data comes from, the OGL ensures it always has the same format and is easy to read.
- Always available: Unlike old systems that sometimes “close at night” to process data, the OGL keeps information available 24 hours a day.
- Decouples: It allows your modern applications to function without depending directly on the old system responding in that second.
With this, you get a clean and orderly data highway where information flows without traffic jams.
What do I do with my applications when migrating to the cloud?
Ultimately, to modernize, you have to look at every application you have and decide what to do with it. Although there are more options, these are the three main ones to simplify:
- Move it as is (Rehost): You take your application and move it to the cloud without changing anything. It is fast, but you don’t take advantage of the cloud’s real power. It’s like moving an old house to a new neighborhood: the house is still old.
- Improve it a little (Replatform): You move it to the cloud, but make small adjustments so it works better, like changing the database for a more modern one. It is a good balance between effort and benefit.
- Remake it (Refactor): You rewrite the application using modern technologies. It is the most expensive and slow option, but it is what gives you maximum speed and power in the long run. This is where you use the “progressive substitution” strategy we saw earlier.
How to start?
Modernizing your company’s technology doesn’t have to be a leap into the void. You don’t have to choose between keeping the old and obsolete or risking breaking everything with something new.
Using an intelligent connector (OGL) to organize your data, a step-by-step replacement strategy (Progressive Substitution), and a data protection system (Airbag), you can innovate with peace of mind. This way you build a solid bridge between the stability of your history and the speed of your future.
Shall we help you take the step at Luce IT?
At Luce IT we are experts in connecting the past with the future. We can help you implement your own Operational Grid Layer (OGL) so your systems talk to each other without problems, or deploy our Data Platform to ensure your information flows fast and secure, protecting your critical operations.
Do you want to modernize your infrastructure safely and simply? Let’s talk.
FAQ
Is it necessary to stop company operations to modernize systems?
No, absolutely not. Using strategies like progressive substitution, changes are made in the background. Users continue working normally and, little by little, start using the new functions without suffering interruptions in service.
What happens if my systems are very old and don’t have an internet connection?
Specific technologies exist (such as reading records or logs) that allow us to extract information from very old systems without the need for complex modern connections. The technological “Airbag” is designed precisely for these cases.
How long does a modernization process of this type take?
It depends on the size of the company, but the advantage of this approach is that you see results from the beginning. Since it is not a total change, you can modernize a small part (for example, stock query) in a few weeks and see the immediate benefit, while the rest of the project advances at its own pace.
What happens if the connection to the central system goes down?
That is the magic of decoupling. Since OGL stores a synchronized copy of operational data, your digital channels (websites, apps) continue to function and show information to customers even if the backend is under maintenance or down.
