For decades, organizations running Adabas & Natural applications have relied on highly experienced developers who understand not only the technology, but also the business logic woven into mission-critical systems. As many of these specialists near retirement, companies are confronting a difficult reality: valuable operational knowledge may disappear faster than it can be replaced.

The challenge extends far beyond staffing shortages. In many enterprises, core applications have evolved continuously for twenty or thirty years, often with limited documentation. Senior developers carry deep institutional knowledge about workflows, compliance requirements, integrations, and edge cases that are rarely written down. When those individuals leave, organizations risk losing the insight needed to maintain stability and adapt systems to future business needs.

One Nordic financial institution recently experienced this transition firsthand. Two veteran developers responsible for a decades-old lending platform retired shortly after a new team was brought in to assume ownership of the application. Although the incoming developers understood the Natural programming language itself, they lacked visibility into the undocumented business rules embedded within the system. With tens of thousands of active loan agreements and billions of Euros tied to the platform, the organization faced a significant continuity risk.

This situation is becoming increasingly common across industries. Enterprises are now recognizing that modernization is not only about infrastructure upgrades or cloud migration. Just as important is ensuring that application knowledge survives generational turnover and remains accessible to future teams.

The Real Modernization Challenge

Natural remains a practical and approachable language for developers to learn. The greater obstacle is transferring decades of accumulated business understanding. In many environments, critical operational knowledge still resides primarily with a small group of long-serving employees. Once they retire, organizations can lose both technical expertise and the contextual understanding needed to make informed changes safely.

The issue becomes even more pronounced when development work is outsourced or distributed across external teams. Without experienced employees acting as translators between business requirements and technical implementation, organizations may struggle to maintain agility, deliver enhancements efficiently, or assess the impact of changes.

As a result, many companies are investing in structured knowledge-transfer strategies before retirement waves accelerate further. Some organizations retain former developers as part-time advisors or mentors, enabling newer teams to gain historical context directly from those who originally built the systems. Others are introducing formal onboarding programs and role-based training paths to shorten the learning curve for incoming developers.

Software AG supports these efforts through training and certification programs focused specifically on Adabas & Natural development. By creating repeatable learning frameworks, organizations can preserve institutional knowledge more effectively while reducing dependency on individual experts.

AI Is Changing How Knowledge Is Preserved

Artificial intelligence is also emerging as an important tool for organizations managing generational change.

Husbanken, the Norwegian state housing bank, explored AI-driven approaches to analyze legacy applications, automate documentation, and compare code structures across systems. These capabilities made it possible to expose information that had previously existed only in the experience of senior developers. Instead of relying solely on tribal knowledge, teams could generate structured insights directly from the applications themselves.

This represents a broader shift in how enterprises approach legacy modernization. AI-assisted tooling can accelerate onboarding, simplify code comprehension, and help teams understand complex dependencies that may otherwise take years to learn.

Modern Tools for a New Generation of Developers

To support this transition, development environments for Adabas & Natural are continuing to evolve.

Natural AI Code Assistant, expected in 2026, is designed to help teams interact more effectively with existing applications and documentation. The solution will enable developers to explore unfamiliar codebases, ask questions about system behavior, generate and validate code, and automate testing activities. These capabilities are particularly valuable when experienced team members are no longer available to provide guidance.

The platform is being developed for both cloud and on-premises environments, addressing the security, governance, and compliance requirements common among enterprise organizations.

Another major step forward is the planned release of Natural for Visual Studio Code in 2026. By bringing Natural development into the VS Code ecosystem, organizations can provide developers with an interface and workflow that align with modern engineering standards. Integration with DevOps tooling, alongside technologies such as COBOL, SSH, and JCL, helps simplify collaboration across mixed technology environments.

For new developers entering enterprise IT, familiar tooling can significantly reduce adoption barriers. It also supports geographically distributed teams by enabling modern source control practices, concurrent development workflows, and branching strategies.

Importantly, DevOps practices themselves can become a mechanism for preserving institutional knowledge. Automated testing, deployment pipelines, and version-controlled repositories embed business rules directly into development processes. Over time, critical expertise becomes documented within code, tests, and workflows rather than existing only in individual memory.

NaturalONE continues to play a key role in this modernization journey as well. Its Eclipse-based environment offers capabilities such as advanced debugging, code coverage analysis, and profiling tools that improve productivity and collaboration. Organizations like the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles have already used NaturalONE to modernize development processes while maintaining the reliability required for systems that handle millions of transactions each year.

Why Development Modernization Matters

Modernizing development practices delivers benefits that extend beyond technical maintenance. Organizations gain greater flexibility when implementing business changes, improve delivery speed, and establish a stronger foundation for DevOps adoption. These improvements help IT teams respond more quickly to evolving customer expectations and regulatory demands without compromising the stability of core systems.

However, modernization initiatives are most successful when approached strategically. Partial adoption often creates fragmented workflows and additional complexity. Organizations that see the strongest results are typically those that align new tooling, training, and operational changes under a clear long-term modernization strategy.

Preparing for the Future

The future of Adabas & Natural development is increasingly aligned with broader industry expectations. The introduction of AI-assisted tooling and support for Visual Studio Code reflects a clear focus on accessibility, productivity, and long-term sustainability.

Organizations that act early to preserve institutional knowledge will be far better positioned to manage workforce transitions successfully. By combining modern development tools, structured learning programs, and proactive succession planning, enterprises can protect the business logic embedded within their applications while preparing a new generation of developers to carry these systems forward.

The retirement of experienced developers does not have to mean the loss of decades of operational expertise. With the right modernization strategy, organizations can transform legacy knowledge into a durable asset that continues delivering value well into the future.