Cisco modernizes 30+ legacy applications in less than a year

The Business Issue

When Cisco saw an opportunity to reimagine how its core business systems could work smarter, faster, and more securely, the team didn’t hesitate. With over 30 critical applications running on a decade-old platform, they knew it was time to evolve.

Rather than simply upgrading, Cisco chose to transform – modernizing its infrastructure with Pega Infinity and OpenShift to create a more agile, scalable foundation for the future.

The challenge: 30+ complex applications, one year to modernize

Cisco’s Pega environment supported essential operations across sales, logistics, and finance. But the platform – running on more than 150 virtual machines – was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Security patching, performance tuning, and upgrades were time-consuming and resource intensive.

The team saw a chance to do more than just keep the lights on. They wanted to:

• Reduce infrastructure overhead
• Improve performance and reliability
• Simplify upgrades and security
• Empower teams to innovate faster

The Solution

A unified platform built for scale

Cisco migrated its entire Pega estate to a container-based architecture using OpenShift and Pega. This shift allowed them to:

• Reduce infrastructure complexity by replacing 150+ virtual machines with containerized services.
• Externalize key components like Kafka and Elasticsearch for better scalability and observability.
• Streamline deployments using Pega’s Helm charts and CI/CD pipelines.
• Maintain security and compliance with Cisco’s internal policies.

The team also restructured its data center architecture, moving from an active-active to an active-passive model to align with Pega’s latest capabilities, all while minimizing disruption to application teams.

The Results

Faster, leaner, and ready for what’s next

Cisco’s transformation delivered immediate and lasting impact:

• 40% reduction in infrastructure costs
• 30% faster application response times
• 99.99% uptime across migrated applications
• Faster time-to-market for new features and fixes
• Improved developer productivity through DevOps adoption

By May 2025, Cisco had already migrated 15+ critical applications to production with zero major issues. The remaining apps were on track for completion by mid-year.

What’s next: Building toward the autonomous enterprise

With a modern platform in place, Cisco is now exploring Pega’s AI and Constellation capabilities to further streamline operations and improve user experiences. The team is also sharing its learnings with other business units planning similar migrations. Want to dive deeper into Cisco’s journey? Watch their PegaWorld breakout session.