Rebuild without stopping the business.
A legacy platform is usually the one making the money, so it cannot pause. We lock the current behaviour with tests, replace it in small verified cycles, and keep the old system serving users until the new one is proven, with the health score showing the improvement sprint by sprint.
What it covers
Diagnosis first
Health score, debt density, hotspots ranked by how often they change and how bad they are. Numbers, not feelings, before any decision to rebuild or refactor.
Characterisation tests
A safety net that locks what the system does today, so structural change cannot silently break it.
Strangler migration
The old platform keeps running. Pieces move to the new one behind the same interface, and the switch happens when the numbers say so.
Stack moves
ColdFusion to React, monolith to services, on premise to cloud, paid black boxes to open source monitoring.
How we do it
Connect the repository, read only
Thirty minutes to a diagnosis: architecture violations, complexity, test effectiveness, debt with a number and a trend.
Lock behaviour before changing it
Approval and characterisation tests on the parts about to move. Nothing structural changes until they are green.
Small, test verified cycles
Extract, test, commit, always green. Detection re scores after every push so the improvement is visible, not claimed.
Run both, then switch
Old and new side by side, traffic moved when the evidence supports it, and the old one retired when nothing depends on it.
- 1
Connect the repository, read only
Thirty minutes to a diagnosis: architecture violations, complexity, test effectiveness, debt with a number and a trend.
- 2
Lock behaviour before changing it
Approval and characterisation tests on the parts about to move. Nothing structural changes until they are green.
- 3
Small, test verified cycles
Extract, test, commit, always green. Detection re scores after every push so the improvement is visible, not claimed.
- 4
Run both, then switch
Old and new side by side, traffic moved when the evidence supports it, and the old one retired when nothing depends on it.
What you get
- A diagnosis report with health score, debt density and a ranked fix list
- Characterisation tests over the parts that change
- A migration plan in small, independently shippable steps
- Before and after scores, sprint by sprint
- A new platform your team can run, and the old one retired safely
Where we have done it
view.com.au: the whole platform rebuilt on a new design in under four months, with the legacy platform running for existing users the entire time. ColdFusion retired, monolith to services.
view.com.auDigital Assessment System: a decade long platform, 15 million answerbooks, 100% recorded uptime while it grew from one university to four and from ten microservices onward.
Digital Assessment System
Questions we get asked
Rewrite or refactor?
The diagnosis decides. Most systems are better refactored in place with a safety net; a few are cheaper to replace. We show you the numbers and say which.
How do you avoid breaking things?
Can our team keep shipping features during this?
Also under product development
Talk it through
Tell us what you need from legacy modernisation.
Thirty minutes with one of our architects. We will tell you whether it is a pilot, a build, or not worth doing yet.