Legacy system

<jargon> A computer system or application program which continues to be used because of the cost of replacing or redesigning it and often despite its poor competitiveness and compatibility with modern equivalents.

The implication is that the system is large, monolithic and difficult to modify.

If legacy software only runs on antiquated hardware the cost of maintaining this may eventually outweigh the cost of replacing both the software and hardware unless some form of emulation or backward compatibility allows the software to run on new hardware.

< Previous Terms	Terms Containing legacy system	Next Terms >
left outer join left parenthesis LeFun legacy code legacy software	coded character set Enterprise Application Integration Enterprise JavaBeans legacy code legacy software	legal legalese LEGOL Le-Lisp lemma