Deferred IT Maintenance Is a Ticking Time Bomb 186
snydeq writes "The underfunding of routine hardware replacement purchases and the degradation of aging enterprise apps pose systemic risk for many IT organizations, thanks to a ballooning 'deferred IT maintenance debt' in the decade since Y2K fears pushed enterprises to invest heavily in essential system upgrades, InfoWorld's Bill Snyder reports. And with sysadmins 'scrambling to keep systems up and running with budgets that barely cover the basics,' this 'IT debt' promises only to increase in the coming years, especially as IT continues to defer routine maintenance in favor of new 'cost-saving' initiatives, particularly around the cloud."
How is this newsworthy? It's just common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Deferring any maintenance can have calamitous effects.
I fail to see why this is newsworthy? Is it just because IT people whine louder?
If you are in the US---just look around. Infrastructure systems are crumbling away because of "deferred maintenance". It's not just IT. It's roads, bridges, state governments, municipalities, houses, businesses---it'severything!
How does that work again? (Score:2, Insightful)
And with sysadmins 'scrambling to keep systems up and running with budgets that barely cover the basics,' this 'IT debt' promises only to increase in the coming years, especially as IT continues to defer routine maintenance in favor of new 'cost-saving' initiatives, particularly around the cloud.
The point of using "the cloud" (a hollow buzzword, I admit) is that you can offload the servers, software, and maintenance to a firm that specializes in such things. Theoretically, taking advantage of the cloud where it fits your organization will offset the "maintenance debt" problem. YMMV, of course.
Re:How does that work again? (Score:5, Insightful)
CIOs and organizations blissfully march towards disaster while quietly chanting to themselves, "The Cloud will save us all".
It's a governance issue - plan and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I routinely see job ads for experienced Java developers, people with hard core experience in integration, esp. with telephony or security technologies, need 5-10 good years, offering $70k tops. Good luck with that, but again it is the CIOs who get the jobs telling people they can staff cheaper, run leaner, cut the corners - that get the job because it is the CFO who is doing the hiring and the performance reviews.
The big corporation IT C-level execs are a fear driven lot, there are no Gates or Zuckerburgs in their midsts. The action is being with the cloud providers, or the web service providers themselves. Enterprise IT is really a shit place to be outside China. It's a world full of EDS consultants and chickenshit CIOs who won't think how a business could use IT to expand. And the social media space is going to tear a bunch of them new assholes, because none of them know how to leverage it. The startups do.
Re:How is this newsworthy? It's just common sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Slow computers with styles that were pretty neato back in 2000 are obvious to the poor office drones who have to endure them; but anything that new can, largely, be forklift upgraded for the cost of the new systems and some grunt labor. Turning a 3 year desktop refresh cycle into a 5 year(or 7 year, *cough* *cough*) desktop refresh cycle doesn't make anybody happy(particularly once warranties run out, the scavenging and improvising begins); but is architecturally a small problem. You don't really accrue much "debt" over time. The cost will be "1 forklift upgrade to present day PCs" whether that upgrade takes you one generation ahead or three.
It's the complex software, the highly specialized proprietary industrial controller cards, and suchlike widgetry where there is real hell to pay, and most of that is invisible...
How about weeding out enterprise standards? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just one minor gripe with the parent - a lot of times, what should be weeded out isn't the "one-offs" (which are often times built way under budget with way more capacity and way less maintenance cost), but the actual official enterprise standard that got put in because some CIO was buddies with some sales rep. "One-offs" are a signal that the current standards (either of technology, or product development), are having problems. While not all "one-offs" may be worthy of keeping, when going through the weeds, don't assume the enterprise standard is perfect, and don't assume the one-offs don't have something to teach you.
Examples of enterprise standards that should be weeded out where I work -> Lotus Notes, StarTeam, Windows XP.
degradation of aging enterprise apps? (Score:3, Insightful)
How, exactly, do enterprise apps degrade?
Do they suffer from bit-rot, and have some kind of half-life?
I understand that eventually apps will fail to be supported by the developers, won't potentially work on more modern operating systems, and in some cases require updating in order to be able to work correctly with the rest of the world.
But it's a bit disingenuous to call this "degradation". The app continues to do what it always did. You're just wanting more out of it than you did before. The app didn't change, you did.
Re:How is this newsworthy? It's just common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on the level of "bespoke" in your house.
Scavenging for desktop parts is the "little devil". Scavenging for people who know how the bloody things work more than 3 years after for IT systems is the real nightmare.
If a system has been in the field for 3+ year nobody knows what are its real dependencies and what does it really take to augment, add capacity or do any changes. The people who knew have left, gone to pastures new or have forgotten what the problems used to be and no documentation can help you here (even if there is any suriviving docs on the design of the system in question). This is valid for almost all classes of IT and telecoms systems and is the real cost factor in IT "maintenance debt". If we use a real-life analogy IT maintenance debt is like a discounted mortgage. You pay virtually nothing for 2-3 years and after that the lender skins your hide.
Cost savings is really expensive. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a governance issue - plan and simple (Score:4, Insightful)
It's amazing how right this is. The problem also stems from companies that could or should be using IT as a way to improve their core competencies and improve their competitive position aren't because of the recent economic issues. Many people are getting power and influence by riding the penny pinching wave instead of making good long term decisions. We're going to be facing the aftermath of having these people over promoted for a long time to come.
Re:How does that work again? (Score:4, Insightful)
"The point of using "the cloud" (a hollow buzzword, I admit) is that you can offload the servers, software, and maintenance to a firm that specializes in such things."
Yes, because it's a demonstrated hard fact that those companies providing infrastructure for the cloud can't lower their operational costs by neglecting maintenance; of course they wouldn't do that anyway since it's those infrastructure companies' very valuable data what is at risk if maintenance is neglected instead of their customers'.
Oh, wait!
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Same holds true for *all* maintenance (Score:4, Insightful)
In the age of BS corporate leadership, who *doesn't* want to be the guy who cuts costs by 25%, gets promoted up into the suites, then lets one of his successors take the fall when the shit hits the fan? I'm more concerned with our public infrastructure BTW.
Re:How is this newsworthy? It's just common sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Silly young grasshoppah. There is no "just do..." in IT. The mythical solution you're referring to is a cruel joke told by vendors.
huge 14 page
So, a little script, then?
Something on my table right now: 15k (in-file - and probably significantly more on the printed page) lines of PHP3 with nasty embedded SQL up the wazoo. It ties into half a dozen (literally, 6) other 'mission critical' applications and is customer facing as well as providing internal network management functionality. And this is small fry compared to some of the crap out there.
You want to know why there is an ever increasing IT debt I'd say that is a BIG part of it. All across the country you have this huge mess of apps written by some Joe Schmo that was bought ages ago and nobody knows how to live without and it DON'T run on anything but what it was written for and even then it is fussy as hell
I couldn't agree more. We've had entirely too many Boy Geniuses in decision making places in IT who think they've got something special and unique which will have Totally Awesome Results. They don't bother to think through their decisions.
The proper approach to something like this isn't to fix it. It's to replace it outright with something that does 90% of the task, better, with 50% fewer inter-dependencies by modularizing things as much as possible. Re-implementing, feature for feature, is quite often quicker. Just make sure you don't make the mistake of so many before you and re-implement it - poorly. If you can't do it, find someone who can.
IMO, the key to a successfully maintainable software infrastructure is to KISS and leave things as White Box as possible. When you can't keep things generic, you keep things isolated and modular. When you need something custom purpose that your users rely upon, you make damn sure it's standards based and that there are alternatives available.
(I don't even want to THINK about where we will be with things like Sharepoint in 3-5 years. Likely, another lengthy, drawn out, and costly migration project. This time, maybe back to something like, oh, NFSv5.)
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