In the film The Godfather Part III, the character of Michael Corleone laments, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Some CIOs might be saying the same thing about their legacy systems. Just when they thought there was nothing more that could save a legacy, service-oriented architecture (SOA) comes to the rescue.

Chad Hersh, senior analyst in the insurance practice at Celent, believes insurers would have found some way to continue using legacy systems even if they had never stumbled across SOA. "We don't always know how, but they find a way," he says.

"What we're seeing right now is another last-minute Hail Mary to come through and extend legacy longer. Nobody was expecting this," Hersch continues. Either replacement is not cost-effective because conversion costs are so high, or carriers are unable to get the business logic out of the older system. "Over time the carrier eventually will have to replace these things as [the systems] die a slow, painful death," he says.

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