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LEGACY REBUILDS

Legacy Software Modernization

Vivid Concept rebuilds aging Flash, Silverlight, PHP and desktop database applications as current web software, with your data, workflows and users carried across.

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An engineer and a long-time employee sit at an old desktop computer and a new laptop side by side, comparing them, friendly.

What the old system does today

The application your business runs on still does its job, and the platform underneath it is sometimes already gone. Vivid Concept rebuilds these systems as current web software through our senior custom software development team, keeping the data, the rules and the screens your staff rely on every day.

We give every one of these systems a future on current technology. Adobe Flash reached end of support on 31 December 2020, Microsoft ended Silverlight support on 12 October 2021, and the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application has been permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10. Microsoft ended extended support for Visual FoxPro 9.0 in January 2015, and desktop database tools like it move to the web just as smoothly.

The team has built Flash applications and written PHP, Java, Perl and Ruby on Rails, in frameworks such as CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Zend and Joomla. We read the code of that era fluently, which makes an old system quicker to understand and safer to replace.

Every project has a lead project manager, and modernization begins with an inventory of what the old system really does. We read the source where it exists, run the application, talk with the people who use it and record every screen, report, import, export, scheduled job and calculation, including the undocumented ones.

A tool that has run for years carries rules that exist nowhere else. The inventory becomes the specification for the new system, its test plan and the checklist that proves the replacement does everything the old one did.

IN-HOUSE ADVANTAGE

Connected With Our Full Los Angeles Team

The programmers who map your old system's rules also rebuild it, so nothing your business relies on gets lost.

What Is Included in Legacy Software Modernization

A full inventory and a written report on what to keep, fix or rebuild

A rebuild, wrap or retire decision for every component

A migration reconciled record for record with your data

An automated test suite built from the old system's rules

A staged rollout plan with the old system kept read-only

Your Legacy Modernization Process

  1. DiscoveryWe review your setup, audience and goals, and you receive a clear scope before work starts.
  2. DesignWireframes show each page or screen and how visitors move through it, and you sign off before production.
  3. BuildBuilt by our in-house team with no handoffs.
  4. LaunchEvery page is tested and reviewed by a person before it goes live.
  5. SupportThe team that built it stays available after launch.

Rebuild, wrap or retire

Close-up of hands resting on an old keyboard beside a new laptop.

Each part of an old system gets one of three decisions. Rebuild means new code on current technology, the right choice when the logic is worth keeping and the platform is not. Retire means a feature no one uses is documented and removed.

Wrap means the old component keeps running behind a modern interface while an API lets new screens and other systems use it; designing an API for your product covers that boundary. Where possible, we build on software that still works instead of starting from scratch.

Some systems can keep running while the replacement is built. Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge, which Microsoft supports through at least 2029, keeps an IE-only application available, and we treat it as a bridge rather than a plan. Unsupported PHP is more urgent: PHP 8.1 and earlier no longer receive security fixes.

We make the call part by part and show you the reasoning. A full rewrite of a stable calculation engine wastes budget, while a patch on an unsupported runtime is a risk you carry every day. New builds land on AWS hosting and deployment or on your own infrastructure, and managing the servers behind a site continues with the same team afterward.

A manager and an engineer stand at a wall map of an old system, putting a card on each part: keep, wrap or retire.

Data migration and testing

Your data is the asset, so it moves first and moves provably. Every table and file of the old system is mapped to the new structure, and repeatable migration scripts run against a copy of production until counts, totals and relationships match record for record.

Reports from the old and new systems are then compared side by side on the same data. Where the old system hid rules in forms or macros, each rule becomes an automated test, so the new application is checked against the old one rather than anyone's memory of it.

A replacement is ready when the people who use the system every day can run their real scenarios in it without reaching for the old one, and your staff sign off the move.

Rolling out without disrupting users

Two people compare an old desktop screen and a new laptop screen of the same abstract data, relieved.

Users move in groups while the business keeps running. The new system works alongside the old one on the same migrated data while a pilot group uses it and reports anything the inventory missed. Cutover then goes group by group, with the old system kept read-only for reference until the final reconciliation is clean.

What your staff gain is software they can use on a phone, sign-in with modern security, accessible controls and an API that connects it to the rest of the business. It becomes the base for custom internal business tools, or for building a subscription software product when the old application was something you sold.

Security work on web apps runs through every rebuild, because old code carries old weaknesses. Still deciding whether to rebuild at all? Our software consulting and systems and application consulting teams assess it with you, and our web development services cover the finished product.

A trainer shows a small group a new system in stages, a colleague beside them watching the room.

23 Years in Los Angeles

All Web Design & Development

Custom web applications, portals and internal tools that replace manual steps and connect your teams, scoped to your timeline and budget.

Vivid Concept designs and builds APIs in Los Angeles for your apps, partners and older systems: REST and GraphQL interfaces, webhooks, authentication, versioning and documentation.

Vivid Concept designs, secures and runs applications on AWS in Los Angeles: serverless and containers, release pipelines, infrastructure as code, monitoring and cost review.

Legacy Software Modernization Questions & Answers

Can a Flash application be rebuilt?

Yes, and Flash is technology the team knows from building it. The application is rebuilt as web software that runs in any current browser: we capture the screens, logic and data of the original, then recreate them in HTML, CSS and TypeScript, with mobile layouts and accessible controls added.

Can we keep our data?

Yes. Data is exported from the old database or files, cleaned, loaded into the new structure and reconciled against the original, counts and totals included. The old system stays available read-only as a reference while everyone moves across.

Should we rewrite or wrap the old system?

Rewrite when the platform is unsupported and the screens need to change. Wrap when the logic is sound and only its surroundings are out of date. Larger systems tend to mix both, component by component, and we show you the reason for each choice.

How do you test a replacement?

Every rule found in the old system becomes an automated test. Both systems run on the same data, so their reports can be compared line by line, and a pilot group works in the new system before the rest of your users move.

Can the new system add AI features?

Yes, once the data is clean and structured. Common additions are document search, intake forms that read uploaded files and summaries of long records, each with a person checking the results and a full activity record. Adding them after the migration keeps the rebuild itself predictable.

Tell Us About Your Project.

Speak directly with our Los Angeles web design & development specialists, or share your project details.

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