A CloudBees survey reveals that enterprise migration projects often fail to deliver promised modernization benefits. In 2024, 57% of enterprises spent over $1 million on migrations, with average overruns costing $315,000 per project. In The New Stack Makers podcast, CloudBees CEO Anuj Kapur describes this pattern as “the migration mirage,” where organizations chase modernization through costly migrations that push value further into the future. Findings from the CloudBees 2025 DevOps Migration Index show leaders routinely underestimate the longevity and resilience of existing systems. Kapur notes that applications often outlast CIOs, yet new leadership repeatedly mandates wholesale replacement.

The report argues modernization has been mistakenly equated with migration, which diverts resources from customer value to replatforming efforts. Beyond financial strain, migration erodes developer morale by forcing engineers to rework functioning systems instead of building new solutions. CloudBees advocates meeting developers where they are, setting flexible guardrails rather than enforcing rigid platforms. Kapur believes this approach, combined with emerging code assistance tools, could spark a new renaissance in software development by 2026.

Learn more from The New Stack about enterprise modernization:

Why AI Alone Fails at Large-Scale Code Modernization

How AI Can Speed up Modernization of Your Legacy IT Systems

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