Your company partners with a web developer and the result is a website that exceeds your expectations. You and your customers couldn’t be happier.

Time moves on and you continue to rely on your website to keep your organization online and in touch with your audience. You make updates and changes and additions here and there, but it is still your original website.

Then you part ways with your web development partner. Maybe it’s your decision, maybe it’s their decision, maybe it’s no one’s decision, it just IS.

So you start the search for a new web development partner. One who works with the platform your site is built on...ColdFusion. That in itself can be a challenge because talented ColdFusion shops are not on every corner. But you also have to find someone who works with your version of ColdFusion….a legacy version.

When used as a noun, legacy can simply mean: anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor. But when used as an adjective, as in ‘legacy ColdFusion’, it means: of or relating to old or outdated computer hardware, software, or data that, while still functional, does not work well with up-to-date systems. Well. That definition sounds pretty somber.

But there is no need for panic.

The important part of that definition is “...still functional…”. Your website is functional, but you are either ready to expand on it, or need to tweak it so that it will be more compatible with current technology. Or, maybe you’ve decided you do want to upgrade to the most recent version. You need to find a web development team with the ability to work on your version of ColdFusion and everything since. It’s possible.

We’ve assisted clients with this very thing in several capacities. A long-time client has a site running on a (much) older version of ColdFusion. The intricacies and customization and constant updates needed on the site made it prohibitive for them to consider a full-blown, back-end redesign, however. But not wanting to inhibit their customer’s experience (their website is a very crucial part of their business model), they worked with us to ‘tidy up’ - for lack of a better term - their back-end code. We went through page by page and line by line to make sure everything was as clean as it could be, making it more conducive to future additions and updates. One day they may reach the point of a redesign, but until then, we’ve got their back.

Another client has a module running on an older version of ColdFusion, and that put it out of compliance. They needed to get it upgraded quickly and efficiently to hit a tight deadline. This wasn’t a complete redesign, this was simply working on this very specific module and making sure it was functional on the most recent version of ColdFusion so that they would remain in compliance and therefore up and running. Our knowledge of not only the current ColdFusion version but also the version they currently had allowed us to assist them and get them back on track in time.

Yet another client had 2 applications that they were upgrading to the newest version of ColdFusion. They had a team assigned to the task, but in the process of the upgrade they ran into a few snags outside their expertise. They also found that additional upgrades would have to be made to avoid new errors that were appearing. With a little bit of research, we offered them a solution to not only fixing the issues they were finding, but also upgrading their applications as well as the server on which they reside. It was this combined approach that is getting them back online error-free.

So if you find yourself in need of help with your legacy-ColdFusion-backed website, do not panic. There are web development teams with the skills you need, just waiting for your call.