Natuvion DCS Retire offers a cost-effective alternative, securely archiving legacy data in the cloud while meeting regulatory and data privacy requirements.
WALLDORF, GERMANY, November 12, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The latest Transformation Study 2026 by Natuvion and NTT DATA Business Solutions reveals that 66% of the surveyed companies are choosing not to migrate all their existing data and processes. Instead, they are opting for a fresh start or selective migration approaches. This raises an important question: how can companies securely store the legacy data they leave behind while meeting regulatory requirements? Not all legacy data can simply be deleted. Legal retention requirements and internal policies often make secure archiving essential. However, keeping legacy systems running solely for this purpose increases costs and creates security and data privacy risks.
This is where Natuvion DCS Retire comes in. The AI-powered solution for system decommissioning and archiving transfers historical data to a secure, privacy-compliant archive in the Natuvion Cloud. Companies can shut down expensive legacy systems, reduce costs, and maintain access to the information they need for audits, reporting, and regulatory compliance. A key advantage is that DCS Retire ensures companies retain only the data they are legally required or permitted to keep.
Legacy Data and Systems Drive Up Costs
The international Transformation Study 2026 highlights the extent of legacy data across enterprise IT environments: 38.4% of replaced systems are more than ten years old, and nearly 10% are over 16 years old. These systems contain large volumes of historical data that must remain accessible and available for analysis to meet commercial, tax, and regulatory requirements. However, every legacy application that remains in operation generates ongoing infrastructure, maintenance, and licensing costs. Systems that are no longer supported also pose security risks. Companies that continue to store historical data as primary data in legacy applications running in the cloud often pay premium prices. Cloud storage, database operations, and licenses for production systems are priced for active business use, not for retaining inactive data.
The study also highlights the financial pressure associated with data transformation projects: More than 80% of companies exceed their transformation budgets, while 79.5% fall behind schedule. At the same time, simplifying IT landscapes offers significant opportunities to reduce costs. According to the study, 48.1% of companies achieved savings in IT infrastructure, 35.6% through system landscape harmonization, and 35% by reducing data volumes.
Archiving with DCS Retire: Lower Costs, Full Data Visibility and Compliance
DCS Retire, the system decommissioning module of the Natuvion Data Conversion Suite (DCS), eliminates the need to keep legacy applications running. The AI-powered solution securely extracts and archives complete, structured data from any database-based source system while preserving the original data model. Data is stored cost-effectively in the Natuvion Cloud, allowing companies to avoid much of the expense associated with maintaining legacy systems or storing historical data as primary data in the cloud.
The example of Swiss energy provider schweizstrom demonstrates how this works in practice. Using DCS Retire, the company securely archived approximately 100,000 historical customer records in compliance with GDPR and audit requirements. It then shut down its former production system and terminated its contract with the previous platform provider.
The German-based cable solutions provider Radio Frequency Systems also successfully decommissioned its legacy SAP ERP system using DCS Retire.
Compliance built in: on-demand reporting and secure access with DCS Retire
Regulatory compliance is becoming an increasingly significant challenge for IT transformation projects. According to the Natuvion Transformation Study 2026, meeting regulatory requirements was the second most frequently cited unexpected challenge, reported by 25.9% of respondents. This represents a sharp increase from eighth place in the previous year’s study. Decommissioning legacy systems involves several compliance obligations, including tamper-proof data retention, adherence to statutory retention and deletion periods, restricted access to sensitive information, and proper documentation.
DCS Retire automates these requirements. The solution provides audit-proof archiving, enforces statutory retention periods, assigns privacy-compliant deletion schedules, and controls access through granular user permissions. Authorized employees and auditors can access archived data through database queries or a read-only web interface, without needing the original application. AI-powered analytics and customized reports deliver results in minutes, replacing reporting processes that previously depended on the legacy system. As a result, companies can respond to tax and financial audits, GDPR data access requests, and internal information requests even after their legacy applications have been decommissioned.
About the Transformation Study
For the Transformation Study 2026, Natuvion and NTT DATA Business Solutions surveyed 1,115 executives and IT professionals across 15 countries about their most recent IT transformation. The study focused on CEOs, CIOs, IT leaders, and transformation decision-makers at mid-sized and large enterprises who had actively participated in an IT transformation within the previous two years. Participants were recruited through a market research firm and surveyed anonymously. The sample included 210 respondents from the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and 155 from the United States. Of the participating companies, 42% employ between 1,000 and 4,999 people, while 37% generate annual revenue exceeding €1 billion.
Philipp von der Brueggen
Natuvion
Marketing@natuvion.com
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