What are the costs of archiving legacy systems – and what are the risks and financial consequences of not doing so?
By Emanuel Böminghaus Legacy Systems Expert and Managing Director, AvenDATA
By Emanuel Böminghaus
Legacy Systems Expert and
Managing Director, AvenDATA
Managing Director, AvenDATA
Anyone involved in decommissioning legacy systems will sooner or later face a critical question: Is the effort required for professional archiving truly justified? In many organizations, this topic is postponed—often due to budget constraints, uncertainty, or a lack of perceived urgency. However, focusing only on short-term effort can lead to overlooking significant long-term financial, legal, and operational risks.
This article outlines the actual costs of professional archiving—and explains why the financial impact of neglecting legacy systems is often significantly higher.
What are the key components of a professional archiving strategy?
Archiving goes far beyond simply storing data on a server or backing up a database. A professional archiving process includes:
- Analyzing and selecting relevant data
- Extracting data from the legacy system
- Converting it into a long-term stable format
- Structuring storage with indexing and access protocols
- Documenting the entire process (Audit Trail)
- Implementing deletion policies in compliance with GDPR and retention requirements
Depending on system complexity, data volume and regulatory requirements, archiving costs typically range from the low to mid five-figure range. At AvenDATA, full archiving of an SAP system starts at approximately €30,000—this includes audit-proof access, structural mapping, data extraction and full documentation. Smaller legacy systems or partial archiving projects are priced accordingly lower.
The earlier and more standardized the archiving process, the lower the overall cost and effort.
What are the costs of not archiving legacy systems?
Choosing not to implement a structured archiving strategy may reduce initial project expenses—but it can lead to hidden long-term costs. These can be grouped into five key categories:
1. Operating Costs of Legacy Systems
Licensing fees, maintenance, infrastructure, electricity, backups, and IT support all contribute to ongoing expenses—often just to enable passive access to old data. Over a period of five to ten years, these costs can easily accumulate into the tens of thousands.
2. Staff Dependency and Knowledge of Retention
As long as a legacy system remains in use, skilled personnel must be available to operate it. With every resignation, retirement, or internal restructuring, the risk increases that no one fully understands how the system works. Training new staff, implementing temporary fixes, or hiring external experts adds to the cost.
3. Audit and Compliance Risks
Without legally compliant archiving, audits or internal reviews may reveal gaps in documentation. Tax-relevant records must be accessible and traceable at all times. Non-compliance—especially with GoBD or GDPR regulations—can result in fines or financial penalties.
4. Risk of Data Loss or Inaccessibility
The longer legacy systems are operated without proper archiving, the higher the risk of technical failure. Outdated hardware, incompatible software, or forgotten login credentials can lead to permanent data loss—with potentially serious legal and operational consequences.
5. Project Delays and Strategic Roadblocks
Unarchived systems often need to be considered during migrations or IT strategy shifts. This slows down new initiatives, complicates integrations, and hinders modernization efforts. Without archiving, legacy systems become obstacles to digital transformation.
Case Study: Archiving vs. Continued Operation
A mid-sized company continues to run an outdated financial system solely to access historical data. The annual cost for hosting, licensing, maintenance, and backups is approximately €12,000—excluding additional internal IT resources. Archiving the relevant data would have cost a one-time fee of around €25,000 to €30,000, ensuring legal compliance, long-term availability and eliminating ongoing operational expenses.
After three years, it’s clear: archiving offered a smarter long-term investment—reducing costs, ensuring compliance, and minimizing operational overhead.
Conclusion: Archiving Pays Off — Economically, Legally and Strategically
Professional archiving involves a one-time project investment — no doubt. But it permanently replaces the hidden long-term costs of continued system operation, reduces compliance risks and enables a clean separation between legacy and modern systems.
Organizations that choose not to archive often pay twice: first through technical complexity and later through legal consequences or data loss. Archiving is not a cost burden — it’s a safeguard for the business, a relief for IT operations and a strategic step toward digital transformation.
Planning to archive a legacy system?