Why IT Failures at Big Companies are Unlikely to Go Away

An interesting article in BBC News Business popped up a few weeks ago with the above title. Go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24962989 for the article

A few quotes from fellow industry folk come up with some interesting reasons and opinions

1. Risk rewards Balance – the investment to protect against failures is higher than the loss occurred if they don’t

2. Human Error not necessarily Technology – limitations in software testing, lax processes in deployment or maintenance

3. Old Technology – Banks in particular run out of date software; fewer skills in the market place to support technology that is more prone to bugs and failures

4. Outsourcing for the wrong reasons – Losing key in-house skills for the sake of cost-efficiencies of using a 3rd party

All four opinions do resonate well in our industry – as a Database Service Provider, what can dsp do to help?

1. Business Case Justification – when modernising and consolidating Database environments we include business benefits that take into account revenue loss that can occur through lack of performance or application/database failure

2. Database Management Services – when regarded as a client’s DBA, we follow documented and structured processes for routine maintenance and monitoring

3. Old Technology – For managed service clients we support old databases such as Oracle 9i or Microsoft SQL 2005, included is trend analysis, we can predict when new storage is required or if CPU usage is maxing out well in advance. We also modernise/upgrade systems

4. Outsourcing to compliment an existing team – Our service is targeted at Enterprise/large business IT departments to offload day to day admin and support tasks. Key skills and business specific knowledge is typically retained by the client

Whilst there is no 'silver bullet' to IT failures, the services we provide certainly mitigate risks and will benefit most mid to large organisations that rely on MS SQL or Oracle technology