Entendimento sobre sistemas legados à luz da teoria fundamentada em dados

Abstract

Computer systems have been developed for a long time with the intention of meeting the goals of organizations. But over time, organizations tend to change their goals for a variety of reasons, causing these systems to go through maintenance cycles to continue to be useful. These systems, which tend to degrade and cause maintainability problems, are commonly referred to as legacy systems. However, it is observed that in the literature there is a diverse understanding of what makes a legacy system, what are the problems and what the possible strategies for evolution. Therefore, this paper was intended to provide a more concise understanding of these elements related to legacy systems. To achieve this goal, data were collected from the literature and analyzed according to Grounded Theory (GT) procedures, resulting in a visual and textual model that assists in this more concise understanding. GT’s open coding phase was collaboratively conducted to obtain data in a consensual, reliable and timely manner with a group of participants who created the codes and two experts evaluated the results. The results, explained through a visual and textual model, show that elements that denote the development or use of obsolete technologies, especially in relation to programming languages, define a system to be considered legacy, and that legacies cause financial problems. , mainly due to the fact that they require several maintenance cycles to remain active and operational. It was also noted that legacy migration is the most widely used strategy today to evolve such systems, with legacy migration to the cloud platform being the most commonly found. Thus, this study supported a better understanding in identifying these elements that respond if a system is already or is becoming legacy, as well as the possible solutions to evolve them.