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20 security (and other IT) mistakes to avoid
Fall prey to any one of these common IT blunders and watch your organization’s prospects suffer -- not to mention your own
By IT World Canada Staff (with files from InfoWorld)
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9. Treating "legacy" as a dirty word
Eager young techies may hate the idea that mission-critical processes are still running on systems their grandparents' age, but there's often good reason for IT to value age over beauty. Screen-scraping isn't as sexy as SOA, but an older system that runs reliably is less risky than a brand-new unknown.
Modernizing legacy systems can be expensive, too. For example, the State of California expects to spend $177 million on a revamped payroll system. And according to one IDC study, annual maintenance costs for new software projects typically run into the millions. In these days of tightened IT budgets, don't be in too much of a hurry to make your "dinosaurs" extinct before their time.
(On the other hand, if you’re working on legacy systems and are concerned about your career path, you may want to read Outmanoeuvre before you’re outsourced.)
10. Teetering on the bleeding edge
With public beta programs now commonplace, the temptation to rely on cutting-edge tools in production systems can be huge. Resist it. Enterprise IT should be about finding solutions, not keeping up with the Joneses. It's OK to be an early adopter on your desktop, but the datacenter is no place to gamble.
Instead, take a measured approach. Keep abreast of the latest developments, but don't deploy new tools for production use until you've given them a thorough road test. Experiment with pilot projects at the departmental level. Also, make sure outside support is available. You don't want to be left on your own when the latest and greatest turns out to be not ready for prime time.
11. Reinventing the wheel
There's no better way to ensure IT agility than to take charge of your own software needs. But too often, companies employ software developers only to squander their talents on the wrong projects.
You wouldn't write your own Web browser or relational database. Why, then, do so many companies waste energy building custom CRM apps or content management systems, when countless high-quality products already exist to fill those needs?
In-house software development should be limited to projects that confer competitive advantage. Functions that aren't unique to your business are best handled with off-the-shelf software. Failing that, start with an open source project and tweak it to meet your requirements. Redundant development projects only distract from genuine business objectives.
12. Falling into the compliance money-pit
When it comes to complying with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and other regulations, too many companies fall back on the Band-Aid method. But throwing money at nebulous compliance objectives only drains funds that might otherwise be used for more tangible projects. While a critical regulatory deadline may necessitate a quick compliance fix in some cases, overall it's best to take a holistic approach.
When planning your compliance strategy, think in terms of global policies and procedures, rather than point solutions targeted at specific audits. Aim to eliminate redundant procedures and manual record-keeping, and focus on ways to automate the compliance process on an ongoing basis. To do otherwise is just throwing good money after bad.
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