Legacy System Consolidation for a Federal Health Protection Agency

Architected the consolidation of three legacy applications into a unified suite and led the conversion of a legacy desktop system to a modern, web-based SOA platform for a federal public health agency.

Client Context

A federal public health agency was running three separate legacy applications supporting related functions, along with a further legacy desktop application built on an aging PowerBuilder platform — creating duplicated data entry, inconsistent data accuracy across systems, and unnecessary process friction for the teams using them.

The Challenge

Consolidating legacy systems in a public health context carries real stakes: the data involved supports operational and potentially health-related decisions, so consolidation has to improve accuracy and reduce fragmentation without introducing new gaps or data-quality regressions during the transition. Separately, the PowerBuilder application needed to move to a modern, web-accessible architecture without disrupting the workflows built around it.

Approach

I led the integration and consolidation analysis and architecture effort to bring the three legacy applications into a single unified software suite, focused on eliminating duplicated data entry, improving data accuracy across the consolidated workflows, and maximizing the value of the resulting shared system. In a parallel effort, I directed the conversion of the legacy PowerBuilder desktop application into a modern, web-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) system, using business process maps, data flow diagrams, and workflow diagrams to ensure the redesigned system preserved the operational logic the agency depended on.

Outcomes

The consolidation reduced the process inefficiency and data-accuracy risk inherent in maintaining three separate legacy systems, while the PowerBuilder-to-web SOA conversion gave the agency a modern, maintainable platform to replace an aging desktop application — improving both accessibility and long-term supportability of a system the agency's operations relied on.

Architecture Disciplines Applied