Your IT Department's Dirty Little Secret

When you access your organization's applications such as email or financials, or use a service such as the Internet or printing, there is a lot of technology you don't see underneath. This technology is a complex stack of hardware and software working together to establish the infrastructure and platform layers, which are required to run your organization's applications and services. The infrastructure and platform layers are rapidly moving towards commoditization, and you've probably heard the terms describing this movement, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

For many small and midsized organizations this commoditization movement is your IT department's dirty little secret. Why? Small IT departments (typically 1-5 people) spend a majority of their time designing, implementing and supporting the infrastructure and platform layers. If this technology is commoditized that means your IT department's primary responsibility can be done cheaper with better service levels by a number of different providers.

Not only are many IT departments attempting to hold onto this secret, they are making it more difficult for your organization to migrate off the infrastructure and platform they've built by embedding your data and applications deeper into their environment. This embedding occurs from poor technology selection and/or operating practices and results in additional barriers to migration off the current environment. To assist senior managers and executives in recognizing this risk, I’ve compiled seven indicators IT is building barriers and steering your organization away from the benefits of IaaS and PaaS.

1. Lack of Transparency - little to no documentation, unclear answers to questions and reluctance to outside audits or assistance is an indicator IT doesn't want anyone to know what is going on behind the curtain. This demonstrates either an unwillingness to give up control or an attempt to hide a poorly constructed and supported environment.


2. Reactionary IT Projects - new IT projects are developed on the fly, require emergency budgets and result from system failures, contracts expiring or lack of vendor support for legacy infrastructure, platforms or applications. This approach often omits design inputs for scalability and flexibility, in exchange for an inexpensive solution that offers immediate functionality. Inexpensive solutions capable of rapid deployment are often closed and inflexible.


3. Unknown Vendors - many small IT departments select business applications developed by small companies or a single developer as a cost saving measure. The tradeoff is the application may be developed on a non-enterprise data, operating system or development platform in order reduce the solution cost, which typically do not scale or integrate with other technologies.


4. Resistance to New Projects - new business applications or additional functionality is met with "it can't be done" or "we can't support that" on a consistent basis. This is a sign of an inflexible infrastructure, platform or application, or IT doesn't embrace change.


5. Can't be without IT -  IT personnel have a hard time leaving for extended periods, and are consistently on the phone while away from the office. This indicates the infrastructure and platforms are not well constructed and/or a lack of a strong IT operating framework.


6. Focus is "keeping the lights on" - a majority of the IT department's time is spent ensuring everything stays up and running, instead of focusing on projects to propel the business forward. This also indicates the infrastructure and platforms are not well constructed and/or a lack of a strong IT operating framework.


7. Lack of a Service Model - IT places blame on the organization's users when problems occur, "your mailboxes are too full" or "you download too many videos", instead of managing to service levels predefined between IT and the organization. An alternative or additional sign is a lack of service level metrics such as availability (uptime) or average resolution times for the service (help) desk. How can the IT department's capabilities be compared against a 3rd party without a benchmark?

These barriers to migration can be overcome, but at a cost. IT is betting your organization won't pay the high upfront costs required to migrate to a new scalable and flexible environment, even though it is likely to save significant cost over time. Hence, ensuring IT's job roles and responsibilities won't change or be eliminated.

The days of the IT "hero", the only one who knows how to fix the infrastructure, platforms and applications held together by bailing wire and chewing gum, are quickly coming to an end. The question many organizations will need to address is how many pieces of bailing wire and gum are in place today, and how to safely move their application functionality and data to a more stable, flexible and scalable environment.