Is this the year you leave VB6/ASP behind?

Created by Mark Juras
Last updated: Mar 27, 2022
2 min read

Summary

Given the ever-changing nature of requirements, people, and technologies impacting software development, legacy modernization is an inevitable challenge.  Learn about why you should boost the urgency of your modernization efforts in this article.

If you still are holding off on your migration project, here are a few reasons why it is more urgent need 


First, the official end-of-support for Visual Basic classic (VB6) was in April 2008 -- almost 15 years ago. It has also been well over 20 years since the last major release of VB6. As a result, the number of skilled developers who are available and willing to work with VB6 is critically low. This represents a growing business risk for organizations maintaining systems in VB6. The same type of risks exist for organizations maintaining web sites with ASP classic.    Keep in mind that no one last for ever, if you depend on key people to help you maintain your legacy apps, they are always getting closer to retirement; you would do well to complete your modernization projects while they are available to help.

Second, there have been many recent changes for Windows Operating Systems:

  • End of Windows XP Extended Support: April 2014
  • End of Windows Server 2008 Mainstream Support: January 2015
  • Start of Availability of Windows 10: July 2015
  • Start of Availability of Windows Server 2016: October 2016
  • End of Support for Windows 7: January 2020

Third, Microsoft has made huge investments in .NET. Since 2000, Microsoft has published many significant releases of the .NET languages, frameworks, and tools. In addition, Microsoft and others have made great investments in open source. .NET has been well-received by product vendors, developers, and other experts. It enjoys outstanding support from the open source community with compilers, IDEs, frameworks, and other tools enabling .NET development for platforms other than Windows. Going into 2017, we find .NET is a powerful, mature development platform backed by a global community of IT professionals.

Fourth, the last decade brought important advancements in how we build software: improved development operations tools and techniques, powerful new frameworks and design patterns, and exciting new areas for application features. These new tools, new methodologies, work well with .NET. When they are combined with strategic business vision, they make a strong case for modernizing VB6/ASP legacy systems and adopting .NET.

For organizations still running on old, unsupported technologies, this may be the year to plan and implement a successful upgrade! We have the upgrade technology and the necessary expertise in this area to assist you. Please give us a call or email -- we will be very happy to hear from you.