In life and with networking, there are very few things that everyone agrees about. Do I run my apps on-premises or in the cloud? Do I install Cat5 or Cat6 wiring? Do I use open source or commercial software? However, almost everyone is in agreement that addressing technical debt is a top priority this year.
Survey findings published this month of enterprise architects and IT leaders from more than 140 global companies found that 96% of them said their company has at least one project planned for this year aimed at reducing technical debt. The survey, conducted by LeanIX, also found that most respondents consider reducing technical debt and modernizing legacy systems the top IT priority.
What exactly is technical debt, and why is it so important? Technical debt is the extra unplanned work a company needs to do to upgrade or change technical systems. It is often the result of projects being rushed, with speed to completion being considered more important than perfection. It creeps in across all aspects of networking and IT. Developers push code out to meet tight deadlines only to have to make numerous updates or add features after deployment. Or an application or data is quickly migrated to the cloud resulting in multiple work efforts after that fact to provide access, optimize applications, or address security issues.
Prioritizing what goes to the cloud
The concept of technical debt is well-known in software development. Increasingly, it is becoming the nomenclature of networking and IT. In addition to the risk and inefficiency associated with it, technical debt also impacts other critical organizational priorities and initiatives, such as cloud migration.
Cloud migration, when done right, involves optimization for the cloud. Technical debt can get in the way of this optimization, so managing technical debt is a necessary complement to a successful cloud strategy.
