Replacing a FoxPro, COBOL or Other Decades-Old System Safely

A decades-old system is replaced safely by rebuilding it in stages while it keeps running. The old system’s screens, reports and data show what the business needs. Those are rebuilt on a current platform one area at a time, the data is migrated and checked, and the old machine is switched off only after the new system has run the business in parallel. A single big-bang cutover is the risky way to do it.

Signs this is your problem

• The system runs on a machine or operating system you are afraid to replace.
• Only one or two people know how to fix it, and they are near retirement.
• The screen is still text-only, or looks like it.
• Getting data out of it means printing a report and re-typing it.
• A hardware failure would stop the business.
• You have put off replacing it for years because it feels too big.

Why very old systems become dangerous

• The vendor has left the building. Microsoft ended support for Visual FoxPro in 2015. Many other products of that era belong to companies that no longer exist.
• The hardware is aging. Old systems often need old servers or old versions of Windows, and spare parts and maintenance contracts get more expensive every year.
• The people have retired. The pool of people who can work on FoxPro, COBOL, dBase or Clipper shrinks every year.
• It is an island. It cannot easily connect to the web, to phones or to the other software you use.
• Nobody dares change it. So the business works around it, usually with spreadsheets.

What is worth keeping

Nearly everything except the technology. A system that has run a business for twenty years holds two things of real value:

• The data. Customers, orders, products and history. It can almost always be extracted and moved, whatever format it is in.
• The rules. How prices are set, what is allowed and what is not, which report matters on Monday morning. These live in the code and in the heads of your longest-serving staff.

The first step is to capture both, in writing, so the new system starts from what you know and not from a blank page.

How a staged replacement works

The work is divided into areas, such as order entry, inventory, billing and reporting. One area at a time is rebuilt as part of a new web application and put into use, while the old system carries on with the rest. Data flows between old and new during the transition, so staff are never asked to keep two sets of records.

When the last area has moved and the numbers have matched for long enough to trust, the old system is retired.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We study the system and talk to the people who use it. You get a clear inventory of what it does.
2. We extract the data and document the rules. This alone lowers your risk, whatever you decide next.
3. We rebuild in stages on ASP.NET Core and SQL Server. The highest-risk or highest-value area first.
4. We run old and new in parallel, then retire the old machine. On your schedule.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.