Post-pandemic IT focuses on monitoring costs
I was wondering what post-pandemic IT could look like? I believe that there will be a renewed focus on reducing the cost of IT monitoring becvause peopel will need to closely examine IT operations costs.
We are slowly recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result I started to think about all the things that those responsible for IT will need to consider.
I ask myself if the trend for blue Skype thinking and communal Zoomposiums continue?
Are our working patterns become more fluid? Is working-to-live and not living-to-work more relevant than ever?
How can businesses adapt to this new normal without rapid evolution in management style?
Then I thought when will economies recover and will they recover? I know one thing is certain, we are not going to wake up anytime soon and find that things are just the same as they were.
An Example in reality
I have observed how many businesses changed overnight, so I’d like to tell you a story of one example close to my home.
A local pub changed almost overnight into a community fruit and vegetable market.
All the tables were cleared to create a one-way flow through the pub, and as a consequence people go in through the front door, and go out through the back, as a result customers don’t pass each other.
Markers are placed on the floor.
All staff wear face masks and gloves.
Payment is contactless wherever possible., so and most importantly customers are served individually. One customer at a time.
I think this pub deserves recognition so I’ll tell you it is called The Spread Eagle in Bromley Cross.
I think you’ll agree that the landlord took a wide view of his business resources.
He quickly adapted it to meet the new needs of new customers, because businesses that adapt faster, survive longer.
Change to adapt
The success of the change was down to a couple of things.
First, the landlord knew what resources were available, and that meant he knew how to use them in new ways.
Second, he was then able to apply great use of everyday technology and made it happen overnight.
There are many other well-publicized examples of this in many other industries and I’m sure you have your own tales of excellence in execution to tell.
What about the recovery of business levels?
For instance, some companies are warning that furloughing may not be enough to save jobs. I think of Airlines and cargo handlers as examples.
I think it’s likely that the government job retention scheme won’t last until everyone who was employed returns to work.
Simply put, the level of business being transacted is unlikely to rapidly return to previous levels, so I suggest its obvious that costs must be reduced.
It’s Not All Bad
But it’s not all doom and gloom, Forbes have published a great article written by Tracy Brower . It gives 15 very positive predictions about how the pandemic will change the future of work. Just to quote a few:
- Work will become more flexible
- You’ll be more comfortable with technology
- Speed will increase and bureaucracy will be reduced
Take a read of the whole article because it’s very positive and insightful.
Why focus on IT Monitoring Costs?
There are going to be drag factors and innovation is going to be crucial because necessity is the mother of invention. The drag factor is that innovation usually costs money.
And that’s the Elephant in the Zoom (sorry, I mean Room).
In the UK, resolutionfoundation.org publish a weekly analysis of the economic effect of coronavirus in the UK and tt’s a fascinating piece of work.
One key piece of information tfrom this study is that at the PEAK of the 2009 financial crisis the UK government were issuing around £34Billion of debt per month. The current expectation is that between May and July 2020, that figure will become £60Billion per month.
Businesses will know this. The governments know this consequently there will inevitably be a tightening, nay an anaconda like constriction, of spending flexibility for some time.
There will be an unprecedented forensic examination of costs because every pound counts. Vital innovation will be fuelled by savings.
It is also likely that there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth because of the extent to which individual countries are exposed to global supply chains that impact everyone. This is a more personal comment, because I truly hope that UK manufacturing sees a massive resurgence.
Post-pandemic IT Monitoring Costs Can Be Lowered
It doesn’t take much to appreciate that post-pandemic, things will have changed. Possibly forever. In some areas, hopefully forever.
One of the ways in which businesses will seek to free up resources to support increased flexibility, reduced bureaucracy and faster innovation will be to examine IT spend.
What costs too much?
Here’s a suggestion. Look at how you monitor and manage your IT infrastructure. The usage profile of just about everything will be changed. With more and more homeworkers. Networks psan wider and have greaterreach. This will impact the potential for security attack.
Being able to monitor all IT resources will be key, and more efficient in your do it from one place. Resources such as networks, clouds, containers, databases, applications, business services, logs, hardware and everything in between must be covered. Doing so may not fuel your innovation engine, but it will render operateions more smooth and effective. Maybe not the fuel, but definitely the grease.
When it comes to IT monitoring, the majority of cases will generate INCREASED costs.
Commercial software vendors usually license their products using a “per device”, “per server” or even more stupidly, “by monitor” formula. As a result you pay for each metric you monitor on each device you monitor.
Where else can economies be gained
Let’s add in the complexity of keeping monitoring software ‘fed and watered’ . that means administration and maintenance to create new monitoring regimes, and apply patches. There are organisations out there employing 10’s of people just to administer the monitoring software itself.
What about the overhead of running large hardware and database configurations for the monitoring?
Don’t forget your support and maintenance costs for this software. At typically 23% of license cost per annum, its a significant cost.
I beleive you can reduce the costs of IT Monitoring and free up valuable resource to help grease the wheels of your future.
If Post-pandemic IT Monitoring Costs lowered, How Can Nobius Help?
Nobius has worked with some of the world’s largest organisations and software vendors. We believe that Zabbix, the Ultimate Open Source Enterprise Monitoring Platform can reduce IT Operations costs, bring freedom from costly vendors, increased flexibility and high monitoring integrity.
Contact us for an informal discussion. Good look in all your ventures, take pride in your efforts, work collaboratively, stay safe and stay happy.
Dave Collier
Director
Nobius.
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