A new report from Dell has found the bulk of federal stakeholders are using old IT systems to run important applications.
The report, which surveyed 100 so-called federal IT decision-makers and business decision-makers, found that despite the push toward agile development, 71 percent of respondents said that they were still using outdated IT systems.
Related: Read the report
Sixty-one percent of those respondents reported that their IT systems were running on Windows 7 or 8, which debuted in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Another 28 percent are still using Windows XP, which Microsoft ended its extended support for in 2014.
As a result, 42 percent of respondents said that cybersecurity was the top concern as a result of using the legacy IT systems and more than half said their agency is using operating software that is no longer supported by the vendor.
Dell conducted the study with PSB as an extension of its broader State of IT Trends study. In 2015, a similar Dell study found that 32 percent of federal respondents were still running Windows 2003 software on their servers despite its extended support ending in July of that year.
"The alarming percentage of critical applications running on legacy IT systems, as revealed by our survey, aligns with many of the concerns currently being voiced by government leaders and agency customers alike," said Steve Harris, Dell Federal’s vice president and general manager, in a statement.
"For many organizations the first step is making the commitment to virtualized, software-based environments. Agencies need this future-ready IT environment to unlock the power of innovation, support digital transformation, protect mission-critical data and reduce maintenance costs."
The Obama administration has recently proposed a $3.1 billion IT Modernization Fund to help upgrade federal IT systems.
Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., have also sponsored legislation to fund federal agency shifts from legacy IT to agile development.
