Ask any CIO what their most looming problem is and a number of them will tell you aging legacy infrastructures. The expansion of new data center environments is only placing an additional stress on these infrastructures, and at the same time many emerging markets are building up from a brand new foundation. For those reasons, these aging infrastructures are a greater liability than ever.
Replacing them, however, is no small feat. In addition to the capital and labor costs, ensuring a predictable outcome and a smooth transition has proved difficult, even for companies with large tech teams. Companies have experimented with a gradual replacement strategy, identifying the oldest and weakest parts of the infrastructure and replacing them through a piecemeal approach. And while this approach sidesteps some of the uncertainty of a wholesale replacement, it has produced less than stellar outcomes. Performance is often compromised for long periods, and by the time the upgrade cycle is complete, it’s typically time to start the process all over again.
Luckily, IT as a whole is moving away from the concept of a hardware-based architecture. Cloud and software-based ecosystems promise to speed up the transition process, minimize the level of disruption, and keep costs at a predictable and controllable level. IT teams will be able to shift loads into a virtual environment while physical assets are being worked on, and then shift them back when the work is complete in a process that should prove seamless. Automation will also be used to improve the process. For anyone struggling to integrate the old with the new, this software-based approach represents a thrilling alternative.
But there is a larger issue at play that deserves to be addressed – the consequences of twenty years of lightning fast technological change. The irony is that aging infrastructures are not actually that old, it’s just that IT has evolved so much so quickly that they have quickly been aged into obsolescence. This is an issue in data center environments specifically, but also in corporate IT generally. Companies were forced to make a major investment in technology in order to respond to the present, knowing full well that those expensive technologies could prove to be irrelevant and cumbersome in the near future. That is the situation we face now, and it won’t be resolved any time soon.
There is only one certain solution to all these legacy infrastructure issues – having the right IT team in place. With the correct number of qualified professionals, companies can devise innovative, cost-effective strategies to bring their technologies in step with 2015 and beyond. When you need to make bold, on-demand hiring decisions, contact The Squires Group.
