For decades, legacy middleware faithfully served its purpose. In recent years, however, increasing pressure to deliver fast and modern experiences has stretched middleware integration technology to its limits, as many integrations can’t keep pace with demands for speed and flexibility.
Today these platforms continue struggling under the additional weight of new AI technologies and agents. In 2025, 41% of IT leaders reported that their organizations’ outdated IT architecture and infrastructure hindered the use of data for AI applications. Clearly, the need for legacy modernization is more urgent than ever.
6 considerations for modernizing your legacy integrations
Whether you’re contemplating modernization or you’ve already made a decision, here are six key considerations that can help you ease the transition with minimal impact to your operations, customer experience, and overall business.
1. Be smart, start small
It might seem tempting to migrate everything at once, but the “rip-and-replace” or “big bang” migration approach can be extremely risky. While it can offer a clean slate, it comes with higher up-front costs, and can cause significant business disruptions due to extended downtimes, integration failures, and data loss, as well as other unforeseen obstacles. For most businesses, this level of risk isn’t worth it.
Instead, a phased approach is generally a safer, more viable option. By breaking the process into smaller, manageable chunks you can mitigate risks, control costs, and maintain business continuity throughout the migraiton.
2. Modernization doesn’t end with migration
A phased approach also addresses a critical, often-overlooked aspect of modernization: ongoing maintenance. With a rip-and-replace migration, your maintenance team is suddenly responsible for an entirely new, minimally tested system without the safety net of the old one. A phased migration, however, allows your team to gradually gain expertise, building a solid knowledge base on a more stable, tested system over time.
3. Plan carefully and have a clear strategy
Not every legacy integration needs to be replaced immediately. It’s essential to thoroughly assess and map your current integrations to pinpoint which ones require urgent, full replacement and which can remain on your legacy systems until a later phase.
This assessment should also gauge each integration’s readiness for change. Then, based on your findings, prioritize integrations for a phased migration. This process will ensure that your modernization plan aligns with your organization’s overarching goals and objectives. By identifying integrations that are ready for transformation, you can streamline your digital journey and optimize resources.
4. Invest in the right products
As both technology and customer demands continuously shift, so must your organization’s modernization plan and strategy. It’s critical to select tools that can adapt to those changes today, and in the future. When evaluating tools, look for features like accelerators, connectors, and customizable products that can seamlessly integrate with your evolving infrastructure.
By prioritizing scalability and agility, you can ensure your technology investments remain relevant and effective as your business grows and adjusts to market changes and technological advancements.
5. Build with security top of mind
When moving from on-premises to cloud-based systems, organizations must maintain industry standards and regulations. Legacy integrations often lack modern security features, making them significantly more vulnerable to exploitation. Additionally, generative and agentic AI come with their own unique security risks, like data poisoning, prompt injection, and an expanded attack surface.
As you embark on your modernization and AI adoption journey, prioritize robust security measures, including monitoring and insights, and stringent compliance protocols across the entire modernization process. This will not only help you mitigate risks associated with data breaches or regulatory non-compliance, but it will also enable you to maintain trust with your customers and stakeholders.
6. Assemble the right team
When it comes to legacy migration, the tools you use are only part of the equation. You also need to find the people with the right skills, knowledge, and experience to implement and develop using these new technologies in the near-term, and to support your ongoing modernization strategy in the future.
In addition to evaluating your internal staffing and resources, consider whether there are adequate services and teams outside your organization that can help you scope and implement those solutions.
Consider your own migration
Legacy modernization requires careful planning and execution. Learn how UNIFY from MuleSoft can help you mitigate risks for a fast and seamless migration.
