Are You Still Maintaining Legacy Applications?
For most mature enterprises, legacy applications are inevitable. There are line-of-business apps that remain paramount to day-to-day operations but have not received an update in five, ten, or even twenty years. Others have been fully abandoned by their vendors. For industries such as healthcare, finance, insurance, manufacturing, and government agencies, regulatory or audit requirements may force organizations to keep certain legacy applications around for decades for data retrieval or historical reference.
So, the question becomes:
Can you effectively maintain legacy applications with modern security standards?
The short answer: Yes…but only with the right application delivery and management model.
The Myth of “Just Migrate Off It” for Legacy Applications
Security teams often respond to legacy software with one directive: “Replace it.”
In principle, they are absolutely right. Unmaintained applications pose real risks:
- Vulnerable code bases
- Outdated libraries
- Deprecated authentication mechanisms and protocols
- Compatibility issues with modern OS hardening
- No vendor support or security patches
It is imperative organizations establish plans to move off these applications.
However, the hard truth is these migrations rarely happen quickly. Replacing the software with a modern alternative means dealing with slow procurement cycles and the possibility that the new product does not offer full functionality parity. One the other hand, rewriting an application to maintain feature parity can take years. Legacy applications can also be brittle and break the moment you try to overhaul them.
In the meantime, the business still needs the application to function and thus IT must keep it safe.
Containerization is the Best Way to Maintain Legacy Applications
Some industries do not even have the option of removing certain applications.
In some cases, simply having access to old raw data files is not enough, the applications for viewing and printing must be maintained. These applications may not be used frequently, but they must remain accessible, and they must meet the same security expectations as any actively used enterprise application.
Healthcare systems in some countries must retain patient records for decades. They are unable to retire applications required for patient lookup as a result. Similarly, insurance brokers and financial institutions who are required to maintain access to legacy data for legal reasons are not in a position to simple retire certain applications. Manufacturing systems tied to long-term product history can be difficult or too costly to upgrade. Some public sector application must remain accessible for data compliance and legal reasons too.
This is where traditional approaches break down. Running these applications on:
- Old operating systems
- Isolated legacy devices
- Siloed virtual machines
…introduce more security risk than they eliminate.
To truly modernize the security posture around legacy applications, organizations must modernize how they are delivered.
Modern Security Starts with Modern Operating Systems
The first step in securing legacy applications is ensuring they run securely run on supported operating systems. Of course, many of them are not inherently able to do so for one reason or another.
Cloudpaging containers eliminate obstacles to running legacy applications on modern OS.
By capturing applications into a Cloudpaging application container:
- They can run on the latest versions of Windows, regardless of age or compatibility requirements by utilizing granular controls over what application components to isolate from or integrate to the system.
- There is no need to keep Windows 7, Windows XP, Server 2008, or other outdated platforms in your environment.
- You benefit from the latest Windows security hardening, virtualization-based security (VBS), credential protection, enhanced kernel security, and more.
Containerizing your legacy applications dramatically reduces your attack surface.
Application Isolation Contains Risk and Reduces Exposure
Cloudpaging application containers provide multiple layers of isolation that help shield the legacy application from the OS and shield the OS from the application.
1. Obfuscation of Application Files
Application files are delivered in a container with its own virtual file system, not installed into the local device’s file system.
This can prevent:
- Tampering
- Reverse engineering
- Unnecessary exposure to other processes
2. Isolation from Local Applications
Legacy apps often include outdated components or DLLs that could conflict with modern software. Cloudpaging isolates these components, preventing cross-pollination and reduces lateral exposure.
3. Access-Controlled Visibility
Only users with explicit entitlement can see or launch the application. To all other users and processes, it effectively does not exist.
4. Encrypted Per Machine
Cloudpaging uniquely encrypts applications per machine. Even if a device is compromised, the legacy application’s payload remains protected. Cloudpaging application containers come with their own dedicated virtual file system. When you package an application into a Cloudpaging application container, the binaries of those applications will be delivered and executed with the designated level of isolation chosen during the packaging, the application will execute in a container sandbox. Application or user data generated at runtime is not stored with the application or synced to Cloudpager. Customers can manage this data using their preferred profile management solution such as FSLogix.
Application Containers Are a Secure Bridge While You Plan Your Exit Strategy
No one planned to run legacy applications forever. Whether you are years away from replacing them or cannot replace them at all, Cloudpaging provides a way to:
- Securely run legacy applications
- Avoid maintaining outdated operating systems
- Reduce risk via isolation and obfuscation
- Enforce modern entitlements and access controls
- Ensure applications are only available when they are needed
- Keep legacy data accessible for as long as compliance requires
This gives organizations the breathing room to plan their long-term modernization strategy without compromising security in the meantime.
Conclusion: With Cloudpaging Containers, Legacy Apps Can Securely Run on Modern OS
Legacy applications and modern security standards do not naturally coexist. Fortunately, packaging them into Cloudpaging containers ensures they are always delivered in a secure and compliant fashion, without sacrificing functionality or performance.
By containerizing legacy applications with Cloudpaging, you are able to:
- Modernize its execution environment
- Eliminate dependence on old OSes
- Isolate and obfuscate risk
- Enforce application entitlements
- Encrypt and protect application data
This is not just a stop-gap fix. It’s a long-term solution to ensure your business can securely navigate the future – wherever it takes you.
Join the Movement to Containerize Everything
Cloudpaging containers are the key to maximizing application compatibility, portability, security, and performance across all physical and virtual Windows endpoints. Whether you’re upgrading physical Windows machines to Windows 11, incorporating Windows on Arm devices into your enterprise, adopting or migrating between VDI and DaaS platforms, trying to get legacy applications deployed to modern Windows OS, alleviate image management, or anything in between, we’ve got you covered.
Join the movement to Containerize Everything so you can run ANY Windows application on ALL Windows endpoints. Schedule a demo with our technical solutions team at numecent.com/demo and sign up for our email list below: