Greetings, brave architects!
This week, we descend into the dungeon of IT history, where a dragon still breathes fire: the legacy system. Yes, that COBOL creature from 1972 is not only alive—it’s demanding tribute in the form of patch after patch, consultant after consultant, and, occasionally, sacrificial interns.

The Main Story: COBOL, the Eternal Guardian

The business insists on “innovation,” while the payroll system still runs on a mainframe older than your average CIO. Every modernization project starts with the prophecy: “This time, we’ll finally retire it.” Yet somehow, that “retirement” ends with another integration adapter duct-taped on.

Like the mythical Hydra, every attempt to cut off a module spawns two new dependencies. And when the last COBOL programmer retires, they leave behind mysterious comments like:
// Here be dragons

TOGAF to the Rescue (Sort Of)

TOGAF enters with its trusty Architecture Repository and suggests:

• Architecture Landscape – map the beast’s tentacles: processes, data, applications.

• Phased Migration Plans – carve a roadmap, don’t swing wildly.

• Governance – ignoring risk doesn’t make the dragon sleep—it just makes it hungrier.

TOGAF won’t slay the dragon, but it does give you a shield and a strategy manual.

Educational Twist: Real-World Takeaways

• Break the legacy into components, migrate gradually.

• Document everything to stop the beast from becoming invisible.

• Use open standards to weaken legacy lock-in.

Humor in Diagrams

Share and Connect

Do you have your own COBOL horror story? Share it—we’re all torchbearers in this dungeon.

Next Week’s Tease

Episode 38: The Architecture Repository Graveyard — where outdated artifacts go to die (and haunt new architects).