IT infrastructure lifecycle management is all about better understanding the true purpose of each element of your IT infrastructure, charting its optimal lifecycle, and eventually planning its end of life. There are big challenges in this field, including technical debt, business continuity, and keeping costs down, so how do you address them?
The Biggest Challenges in IT Infrastructure Lifecycle Management
Taking a strategic approach to managing the lifecycle of your IT infrastructure is the ideal approach. Instead of improvising and reacting to each individual issue that arises (as it arises), you should start with a high-level vision for how to manage your IT lifecycle - and strategically tackle the biggest challenges you anticipate.
These are some of the most important challenges to address:
- Premature or complex expansion. Businesses generally want to grow. They want to serve more customers, make more money, and reach new geographical areas. To accomplish this growth, organizations typically need more technological resources, expanding their tech footprint and investing in more infrastructure. However, if you expand too quickly or prematurely, you can end up making your infrastructure too complex; in your haste, it's also possible to take shortcuts that impact your future scalability. The solution is to expand slowly and deliberately, with a long-term time horizon in mind. Every decision you make to expand your tech capacity should be focused and justifiable.
- Technical debt. Legacy systems, legacy code, and other outstanding technical issues can cause increasing problems in the future; if you keep kicking the can down the road, rather than addressing these complications proactively, they're going to get harder and harder to manage. You need to dedicate time and resources to paying off this "technical debt" as quickly as possible, so it doesn't interfere with your operations.
- Business continuity (BC). Speaking of operational interference, another challenge you need to consider is preservation of business continuity. In the course of maintaining, upgrading, or expanding your IT infrastructure, your business operations may be disrupted. You need to be proactive in coming up with a strategy that maintains business continuity as a high priority; when you make changes and upgrades while interfering with business operations as little as possible.
- Cost management. How do you keep costs in check? Acquiring and upgrading new IT assets is going to cost you money. It's also expensive to monitor, audit, and maintain all your IT equipment. So how do you maintain your effectiveness without bankrupting the company? There are dozens of strategies and approaches that can help you here, such as hiring the right people, making more strategic acquisitions, practicing preventative maintenance, opting for Third Party Maintenance, and more.
- Security and compliance. Your business has legal obligations to protect the privacy and security of your customers' data. How can you effectively plan for your IT infrastructure lifecycle while still keeping security and compliance top priorities? Working with lawyers and compliance experts is usually the best course of action.
General Strategies for Success in IT Infrastructure Lifecycle Management
These general strategies can help you find success in addressing the biggest challenges associated with IT infrastructure lifecycle management:
- Work with professionals. Work with experienced professionals whenever possible. Your best bet is to work with a managed IT infrastructure service provider who can help you with every stage of your IT infrastructure lifecycle and provide you with guidance on your IT management strategies. Failing that, make sure you hire people with the knowledge and experience necessary to keep your technology running as efficiently as possible for as long as possible.
- Maintain an active inventory. You should understand the tech assets held and used by your company at all times. Make sure your inventory is actively maintained and monitored so you can take action on potential issues faster.
- Create repeatable processes. Create repeatable processes that you and your IT employees can follow consistently to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and mitigate potential problems. If you have a regular process for inspections and maintenance, for example, those inspections and maintenance should be much more consistent.
- Have contingency plans. What happens when one of your IT assets fails prematurely? What if you're forced to delay a round of maintenance? You should have thorough contingency plans in place for every significant element of your IT infrastructure lifecycle management strategy.
- Measure and analyze your effectiveness. Finally, make it a point to measure and analyze your effectiveness. You should have a strong understanding of your IT hardware ROI, as well as the effectiveness of your maintenance and upgrading strategies. What are the weak points in your approach? What steps can you take to address them? Third party organizations are especially helpful here, since they can give you a neutral, unbiased view.
IT infrastructure lifecycle management is a large and nuanced topic, so unfortunately, a single article may not give you all the information you need to revolutionize your IT department. But if you think more proactively about the future of your IT infrastructure - and you're willing to invest in more proactive strategies to improve it efficiently - your business will end up in a much better position.
