Legacy System Challenges - Skills, Risk, and Replacement

COBOL and skill shortages, security vulnerabilities in old systems, and why replacing a working legacy system is expensive and risky

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Views #: 85

Questions #: 8

Time: 10 minutes

Pass Score: 80.0%

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Volume of Legacy Business Code

1 pts

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Which programming language is associated with industry estimates of over 200 billion lines of code still running in current business systems, and was the dominant business development language from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially in finance?

Rust

JavaScript

Python

COBOL

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Skill Shortage Problem

1 pts

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What major staffing problem do companies face with legacy systems written in older languages like COBOL?

A shortage of programmers skilled in the older language, as original developers retire and universities no longer teach it

A legal requirement that only the original author can modify the code

An inability to hire any programmers at all for any kind of system

An oversupply of programmers wanting to specialize in obsolete languages

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Security Vulnerabilities in Legacy Systems

1 pts

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Why are legacy systems often more vulnerable to security issues than modern systems?

They were developed before the widespread use of the Internet, so security was not designed in from the start

They are immune to all forms of cyberattack due to their age

They are always written using the most modern encryption standards available

They are required by law to disable all security features

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Why Businesses Avoid Replacing Working Legacy Systems

1 pts

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What is the simple core reason that businesses often do not replace a legacy system with a modern equivalent, even when problems exist?

Legacy systems automatically upgrade themselves over time, removing the need for replacement

Modern replacement systems are always functionally inferior to legacy systems

It is illegal to replace any software system that is more than five years old

It is too expensive and too risky to replace a system that works effectively

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Four Reasons Replacement Is Expensive and Risky

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Which of the following are among the documented reasons why it is expensive and risky to replace a legacy system with a new system? Select all that apply.

Important business rules may be embedded in the software and undocumented elsewhere

There is rarely a complete, up-to-date specification of the legacy system

New software development is inherently risky, with possible delays and cost overruns

Legacy systems are always cheaper to replace than to maintain

Replacement systems are guaranteed to be delivered on schedule

Business processes and the legacy system's operation are often inextricably intertwined

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Embedded Business Rules Risk Example

1 pts

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Consider a financial services company whose risk-assessment logic for approving applications is coded directly into legacy software with no separate documentation. What risk does this pose if the system is replaced without carefully preserving these rules?

The replacement system will automatically inherit all business rules without any analysis

The new system will run faster regardless of whether the rules are preserved

There is no risk at all since business rules are never embedded in software

The company may unknowingly approve high-risk applications, leading to unpredictable and costly consequences

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Why Older Legacy Software Becomes More Expensive to Change

1 pts

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Which of the following are reasons why legacy software more than a few years old is particularly expensive to change? Select all that apply.

Inconsistent programming style and conventions due to many different people making changes over time

Data may be spread across multiple incompatible files and databases with duplication and inconsistency

The system may have been optimized for space or speed at the expense of understandability

Years of maintenance usually degrade system structure, making it harder to understand

Legacy systems always run faster than newly written systems

Parts of the system may use obsolete programming languages, requiring expensive outsourcing to find skilled staff

System documentation is often inadequate, out of date, or limited to the source code itself

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Optimization Tricks and Modern Programmers

1 pts

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Why do optimization techniques used in older legacy code often cause problems for programmers trained in modern software engineering practices?

Modern programmers refuse to work with any code older than one year

Optimized legacy code automatically converts itself into modern syntax over time

Optimization tricks are always written in a completely different programming language than the rest of the system

Modern programmers may not understand the specific machine and language optimization tricks used to make the old software run effectively on slower hardware

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Undergraduate Professional

Volume of Legacy Business Code

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Skill Shortage Problem

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Security Vulnerabilities in Legacy Systems

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Why Businesses Avoid Replacing Working Legacy Systems

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Four Reasons Replacement Is Expensive and Risky

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Embedded Business Rules Risk Example

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Why Older Legacy Software Becomes More Expensive to Change

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Optimization Tricks and Modern Programmers

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