Lee Atchison - Overcoming IT Complexity: Simplify Operations, Enable Innovation, and Cultivate Successful Cloud Outcomes

Technology has grown increasingly complex over the years, but the rate of its evolution has increased dramatically in the last decade. Many factors are driving this fast evolution:

• The rising number of devices connecting to the internet, from laptops and smartphones to smart home products

• The increase in cloud services

• The expansion in the number of devices that can be connected to create a single application

• The development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which has led to innovative new products that help automate traditional business processes

• The evolution of open source software, which has made it easier for developers to create innovative new products

The numerous applications and devices employees use across an organizations environment generate fragmentation. This fragmentation is a big challenge for the IT department, and it can be hard to detect because it may be distributed across various systems your organization uses (sometimes without employees knowing about it):

• Applications can be fragmented across numerous databases, including cloud databases.

• Virtual machines (VMs) are often fragmented across multiple servers.

• Physical servers are often fragmented across multiple physical locations.

• Network infrastructure and cloud services can also become fragmented.

Complexity can increase the time it takes to deliver new IT solutions or roll out new services. It can also slow down processes such as equipment procurement and software upgrades. Complexity can be particularly problematic for business users, who may have limited knowledge of the technologies used by their organizations IT department. This can make it difficult for these users to collaborate with the IT department on projects or get the kind of support they need when issues arise. It can also make it difficult for the IT department to keep track of everything being used across the organization and ensure that its all secure.

The complexity of building API-first and embedded SaaS solutions is rising as new applications are based on open source platforms. Every day, delivering new value while satisfying customers becomes more difficult. Even if your IT organization is still struggling to eradicate the Node.js monolith or is striving to scale to billions of transactions, Lee provides ideas based on Adaptive Architecture principles and the crucial elements of flexible infrastructure as code to help you reduce technical debt and IT complexity.

Ken Gavranovic

CEO of AGS LLC;

Former CEO of Web.com (Interland), GM of Product and

Engineering at New Relic,

and VP of Digital Systems at COX Automotive

The complexity of modern IT systems can impact your applications quality and security.

Its that simple.

Business pressures have caused IT organizations to focus on creating new applications and adding new features and capabilities to existing applications to meet increasing competitive demands. The result is insufficient time to work on managing, operating, and maintaining existing applications and capabilities. Ignoring ongoing issues increases technical debt, which in turn increases the complexity of modern systems. Increased system complexity makes adding new features and capabilities harder, and the vicious circle continues.

Addressing the IT complexity dilemma is essential, but it is not easy. In this book, we begin by examining this dilemma and how it impacts you, your applications, and your organization. Then we talk about identifying and measuring complexity in your organization today. How can you measure complexity without introducing complex measurement systems? Since you cant improve a system until you can measure it, this ability is critical to managing IT complexity.