Application Modernization: The Key to IT Cost Reduction

When it comes to saving IT budget dollars, there is a tendency to start with consolidating the IT infrastructure largely because it’s the most visible and frequently expensive component of any enterprise IT environment.

But a new survey of 230 enterprise IT architects conducted by Architecture and Governance Magazine and Troux Technologies, a provider of IT management tools, shows that the greatest opportunity to save budget dollars is by taking an aggressive approach to application modernization. In fact, the survey finds that 36 percent of the enterprise architects cite application rationalization as the primary initiative they are working on today.

According to Troux CTO Bill Cason, the most significant thing about that result is it shows that enterprise architects in particular are moving out beyond their traditional ivory towers to focus on application modernization issues that have an immediate impact on the business.

What makes that now possible, however, is that business leaders in the wake of the economic downturn are keenly interested in rationalizing the enterprise application portfolio to reduce costs. But before that can happen, they need IT expertise that can first identify all the levers that make up the existing enterprise environment, and then propose an alternative application environment that should ultimately reduce both application software licensing fees and IT infrastructure costs.

But once that does happen as part of a concerted effort, the savings are not only substantial, they also tend to be permanent.