It seems like we're always trying to explain exactly what we do.  Not that we mind, of course.  We are always trying to raise Data Retirement awareness.  Over the last few years we've seen the light bulb go on in more and more healthcare organizations.  It's a wonderful thing.  And yet I, personally, am surprised at how the old thought patterns still prevail, even among those who understand the challenges of retiring a production application and risks of data conversions. They want to pull all the data out into reports and put the reports into a document imaging system or find some pre-fab "online archive" box to store everything in.  It's not that those ideas don't solve the problem (technically, at least).  It's just that they don't aim very high.

While I was an undergrad I had a professor who related a story to the class about this kind of situation, which I would like to share with you.

It was a brutal summer, the kind that keeps even native Georgians indoors.  After a great deal of sacrifice and hard work through his PhD program, my professor decided it was time to take a real vacation with the family.  They left town and stopped at a hotel.  The hottest part of the day was over, but it was still pretty toasty, so he went to the swimming pool with his two small children in tow.  It is a universally accepted mathematical formula that children + swimming pool = fun.  A good time was had by all.  But sadly, all good things come to an end, and the children were taken back to the hotel room despite their insistent complaints.  The swimming pool was great, but there would be more fun tomorrow, he promised them.  In the morning the children wanted to go back to the swimming pool.  Their father promised them more fun, and fun = children + swimming pool (refer to formula above).  But that wasn't the plan.  Instead the children were herded into the car, again over voluminous complaints.  The entire car ride was a cacophony of whining and complaining as the children voiced, as only small children can, their disappointment with the current arrangement.

After this car ride, which was not enjoyed by any of the car's occupants, the family arrived at their destination.  The kids grumbled out of the car and sulked down the path from the parking lot, kicking, stomping, and generally abusing the ground as they went.  When the path ended they looked up and their jaws dropped and, for the first time all morning, they children were speechless.

They were looking out at the endless blue of the ocean.

Now, I'm not so bold as to claim that Legacy is a whole ocean better than any other solution.  What I am trying to say is that it is worth the time and effort to see the difference.  There are as many potential solutions to the data retirement problem as there are IS professionals with a compiler.  Any developer worth his salt could come up with that swimming pool on a hot day.  But we've been around for a while (over ten years).  We've seen the ocean.  Let us help you get there.