How are organizations managing legacy application retirement while maintaining long-term data access?

We are evaluating different approaches for retiring legacy applications without losing access to historical business data.

Many organizations continue maintaining outdated ERP, CRM, finance, and custom applications solely for compliance, audit, or reporting purposes. However, the infrastructure and maintenance costs can become significant over time.

I'm interested in learning:

• How are you handling legacy application retirement?
• Are you archiving data before decommissioning applications?
• What challenges have you faced with compliance, reporting, and user access after retirement?
• Have you found a scalable approach that balances cost reduction with long-term data accessibility?

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences and best practices.