In the year 2024, I did not expect to come across systems that were developed while I was still in Primary School. Windows Server 2003, and SQL Server 2000. This system is running multiple business-critical system. It is the how the company makes money.
But what makes this a legacy system? It is partly that the core operating systems are well past the End of Life (EOL)1, partly that very little of the ‘why’ the system does what it does is documented, partly that there is little documentation for any aspect. But mainly, asking anyone who has interacted with the systems in a technical capacity have all conveyed the same dread of making a change.
The problem with having a core business system in production that is this old, is that no one can remember why things are the way that they are. Further, the difficulty in interact with modern tools, it ultimately has placed limits on the most modern tools that can be used. For instance, attempting to use a modern version of dotnet will fail on multiple fronts. SQL could only communicate over ODBC with unencrypted communications.
To be complete.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-server-2003- ↩︎