Data Lakes: Why They Fail to Save Legacy Systems and Data

By Emanuel Böminghaus, Legacy Systems Expert and Managing Director, AvenDATA

Emanuel Böminghaus

Legacy System Experte
Geschäftsführer AvenDATA

Legacy systems are survivors. They keep running even after users move to modern applications. In the past they quietly hummed along in the background. Today many companies try to dump these leftovers into a data lake. What seems smart at first quickly turns into a dangerous detour. Instead of order you end up with a data swamp.

The Myth of the Data Lake as Savior

On paper, a data lake sounds perfect: one massive repository for everything—structured and unstructured. From IoT signals and social posts to entire ERP tables. All in one place, always available, instantly analyzable. The vision is a single source of truth.

In reality, the lake often turns into a swamp. Schemas are missing, relationships are undocumented, metadata sinks to the bottom. The big bucket promises transparency and delivers chaos.

When Legacy Systems Sink

It gets especially risky when companies push legacy systems and historical data into the lake. These records are not just “old”; they are subject to retention and audit requirements. Tax authorities, external auditors, and internal audit all need reliable access to past transactions.

Dumping this data into a lake without control means losing structure and readability. You invite compliance violations, make audits harder, and create an even bigger problem: an unmanageable data store with no legal certainty.

Bronze Silver Gold Theory Versus Hard Reality

In theory data lakes sound structured. A bronze zone for raw data, a silver zone for prepared data, and a gold zone for validated information. But reality tells a different story.

Legacy data is stubborn.
Table structures are outdated or proprietary.
Business logic from legacy applications rarely fits into modern frameworks.

The result is that what should shine like gold often remains stuck in the fog, turning the data lake into a data swamp that raises more questions than it answers.

System Decommissioning Instead of Data Hoarding

The mistake is clear.

The goal should not be to blindly move legacy systems into modern storage environments. The goal must be to decommission legacy systems in a controlled way and archive their data in a legally compliant manner.

This is exactly where AvenDATA comes in. With our ViewBox solution we archive historical data from decommissioned systems in a way that is audit proof compliant and always accessible. Companies keep full visibility reduce costs and meet all legal requirements without overloading their data lakes.

Buzzwords do not fix legacy baggage

Data lakes, data mesh and data fabric all promise the next big breakthrough in data management. None of that helps if you haul unmanaged legacy baggage along for the ride. Clarity starts with a clean separation between live IT and archived historical data.

Conclusion: archive, do not sink

Data lakes are powerful tools. They are not the answer to obsolete systems and aging data. If you dump legacy systems and records into the lake, you risk losing control. The better path is to decommission, archive and keep transparency.

Turn the perceived risk into a clear advantage. Let the data lake stay what it should be: a place for insights, not a graveyard for legacy.

Planning to archive a legacy system?