During this time of year, discussions
around giving up bad habits increase as a way to mark the start of Lent, a
religious observance that spans 40 days. Often, participants look to cut back
or limit certain foods, drinks and activities. Even for the non-religious, the
season provides a time to reflect on poor habits and vices, opening up the
opportunity to improve health and personal relationships.
This reflection is also important for
businesses and organizations to consider as they plan for the health and
wellbeing of their companies for the remainder of the year. One major obstacle faced
by businesses looking to progress and modernize their IT infrastructures is
holding onto legacy technology.
Since the technology industry is based
on constantly providing the latest improvements, outdated IT infrastructures
can lead to a series of issues, including preventing businesses from keeping up
with the competition, missing opportunities to provide first-rate customer
service and opening up a business to security vulnerabilities. Below, two
industry experts provide advice on why you should consider replacing your
legacy technology.
Think About Your Customers
"As we enter a new decade, everything
as a service is increasingly becoming the preferred business model. In the
Managed Services Provider world, the ability to deliver flexible software and
services ultimately determines the fate of a business. Consider the inflexible
- and time-consuming - nature of traditional IT support. An on-site technician
is required to schedule a visit, find the problem, report, calculate the cost
and materials required to fix the issue, and then come back and actually fix
the issue. What customer is going to accept that kind of arrangement?
"Thankfully, the ‘as a service' model
has changed all that. The introduction of remote monitoring and management
tools has helped organizations adopt more proactive measures for IT. Managed
services provide more streamlined and consistent support for IT than legacy
measures ever could have. So, to all MSPs out there, legacy software architectures
were never built to address your business's needs - or the needs of your
customers. Give up the legacy tech and adopt a software architecture that will
transform how you deliver managed IT services to your customers," Gregg Lalle,
SVP International Sales, ConnectWise.
Commit to Modernization
"The nature of technology is such that
everything new ages quickly. This is particularly true of storage technologies.
As our reliance on data peaks, the volume of unstructured data explodes. The
challenges caused by this data sprawl have moved beyond how enterprises should
manage their storage systems and have extended into when to migrate away from
legacy technologies to new storage solutions.
Outdated technologies often can't
handle the scope, scale, or pace of today's data management requirements. They
start crumbling under the strain and become very costly to keep
operational.
If you're observing Lent and looking
for something to give up -- and you want to improve the relationship your
organization has with technology -- consider giving up legacy storage solutions
that can't provide the value you're after. Not just for 40 days... but for
good.
Agile organizations have to embrace
data mobility to truly unlock the value of their data capital. Data silos have
to be broken down using flexible tools to move, archive, and protect data. Data
should always be in the "best" place on-prem or in the cloud. Best in terms of
cost, availability, performance, functionality, protection, and compliance.
Don't be afraid, go for the challenge:
start moving your data and give up legacy this Lent," Carl D'Halluin, CTO, Datadobi.