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2023 is the Year Tech Pros Finally Deal with Tool Sprawl

By Chrystal Taylor, Head Geek, SolarWinds

Application performance tools. Cloud services tools. Database performance tools. Here a tool, there a tool, everywhere a tool!

Digital transformation initiatives and the rapid shift to remote and hybrid work have made for one tired and spun-out IT pro. IT environments have become increasingly complex and hard to appropriately monitor as enterprises have adopted a host of various tools to keep up with digital transformation projects insisted upon by leadership and mandated by the changing times.

In addition to these new developments, companies are already relying on a bevy of solutions to monitor their IT infrastructures, applications, networks, and databases. On average, engineers are tracking 16 monitoring tools, with some managing as many as 40 as service-level agreements increase.

"Less is more" is the most applicable phrase here, as many tools only lead to siloed data, poor integration, security vulnerabilities, and an immense lack of visibility. And homegrown tools aren't making the situation any better. Instead of licensing software applications from vendors to meet business needs, some IT teams create their own in-house. Then individuals often carry them as they move from job to job, and when the tool owner leaves, critical knowledge of that tool is also lost. The more devices they have and the more tools a company employs, the harder it becomes for teams to get the valuable information they need from their homegrown tools.

Homegrown tools also aren't very compatible with other tools, meaning IT pros have yet another system to log onto and navigate. We've previously seen IT pros be highly hesitant to give up their homegrown tools. Part of this resistance comes from the difficulty of letting go of their creation, and part comes from determining how much time is spent on maintenance.

With all these challenges and complexities facing us in the next year, I think we will finally see more and more people release their tools to create more streamlined processes and save time. Tool sprawl is not a new problem by any means. We've discussed this obstacle for nearly a decade in both technology and the business industry at large.

But there are two trends on track to make 2023 the year we combat tool sprawl once and for all.

Recent reporting has shown that CEOs globally are expecting a recession over the next 12 months. In the face of this potential economic downturn, businesses are cracking down on budgets, looking to cut costs wherever possible. And not only obvious financial costs but also time costs which generally translates to labor cost and customer loss due to slow issue resolution times. Smaller teams mean the demand is on employees to do more with less. The bar is also being raised for the introduction of new tools. If they aren't consistently adding value, they won't be in the company's infrastructure for long.

Thankfully, there are some tools on the market proving to be invaluable for companies. The move to observability makes it possible for these IT teams to achieve better visibility with fewer tools. It empowers them to do more with less instead of drowning them. Leveraging observability and AI tools help IT pros achieve full visibility of all tools in one place, ensure greater application performance, troubleshoot and resolve issues more quickly, improve operating efficiency, and produce higher-quality software.

Technology solutions have undergone various evolutions and transformations over the last few years. Observability is the evolution of monitoring, and AIOps and machine learning are tools intended to augment and improve upon observability. Companies are beginning to realize they can save valuable time for their organizations by investing in these new tools and technologies designed to enhance the quality of their work lives.

Continuous iteration, improvement, integration, and delivery systems are becoming more widely adopted because they could save companies roughly $4.8 million per year, on average. 2023 is the year companies finally consolidate these tools into observability and AIOps solutions.

The business needs and customer experience have to be prioritized as they are the main driving forces in making and executing decisions. When conducting thorough "look-backs," business executives see signs the tools they initially implemented are no longer meeting business objectives. As a potential recession looms, IT teams should be looking to let go of those tools and return some money to their budget.

IT teams should release those homegrown tools found to no longer provide value and determine which tools can be merged into one. Stay unemotional in 2023 and get rid of it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chrystal Taylor, Head Geek, SolarWinds

Chrystal Taylor is a dedicated technologist with nearly a decade of experience and has built her career by leveraging curiosity to solve problems, no matter the size, industry, or client. Whether tinkering with the family computer, or inflicting general destruction in MS-DOS Tank Wars, Taylor has always been a geek.

Taylor is a SolarWinds deployment veteran who's built a successful IT career by translating client needs into optimized and performant systems. She loves customizing current deployments to ensure systems grow in tandem with user needs. She's achieved several SolarWinds certifications. A THWACK® MVP since 2011, she understands the power of community and the SolarWinds commitment to its users.