If you’ve ever attempted to herd raccoons while juggling a bunch of sloppy joes that have been set on fire, you might be able to grasp the challenges of managing IT infrastructure. That crazy ecosystem that keeps your business in business is made up of a mess of hardware, software, networks, people, and cold, hard fear. It’s up to you to tame it all, and look damn good while doing it.
So, let’s toughen up and learn to wrangle those IT infrastructure management challenges into some kind of submission. We’ll let you in on a little secret – dealing with those challenges doesn’t need to be so overwhelming. You just need a little structure, a methodological approach, and a willingness to make things easier for yourself.
The Challenges of Managing IT Infrastructure
Challenge 1: Constant Change
The one thing that never changes is the triteness of the phrase, “The only thing that never changes is change itself.” Your business is always in a state of flux: hiring, firing, dipping its corporate toe into new markets or changing from all-office to all-remote or an unholy hybrid. Your customers buy differently. Hackers hack differently. And then there’s a pandemic. Your business is never at a stand-still, so your technology needs to match that frantic pace. Managing IT infrastructure in the face of constant change is one heck of a challenge.
Solution: Let Your IT Strategy Guide You
Your IT strategy is aligned to your business and shows how your IT infrastructure supports your business goals. Having an IT strategy keeps you focused on what your business wants now and in the future. It’ll help you clarify, optimize, and justify your IT decision-making, and it underpins a whole ton of protocols that’ll help you deal with all your challenges, not just constant change.
Challenge 2: Staying Secure
Here’s another fun challenge: keeping your systems operational and accessible and, oh yes, super-safe from malware, phishing attacks, and all the other yuk that’s thrown at them every day. Data security planning should be a key part of your IT strategy. Here are some of our favorite ways to meet data security challenges.
Solution 1: Follow a Compliance Framework
To keep your IT infrastructure secure, it’s good practice to be guided by the principles of a data security compliance framework. If your business works in certain industries like healthcare, you’re gonna need HIPAA. If you deal with credit cards, you’ll discover the joys of PCI DISS. If you’re responsible for other people’s data in the cloud, you’re looking at SOC 2. But, even if you’re not required by law to be compliant, following a framework gives you a well-trodden pathway to reducing the risk of a data breach.
Solution 2: Get Mobile Device Management (MDM)
MDM is a cure-all for a nestful of IT infrastructure challenges, but it’s especially good for keeping your compliance officers giggling happily as they go about their day. Here are a few benefits of MDM.
It Makes Monitoring Easy
Every MDM comes with a free IT asset registry. Yes, you’ll have an overview of your devices: where they are, what they’re doing, how up-to-date the OS and software are, and a plethora of information that will help you prevent security nasties before they happen.
It Protects Your People From Themselves
When Jodie in Accounts thinks she may have left her corporate iPad somewhere in Idaho, MDM will often let you remote lock it, and maybe even wipe it for good measure. All from the comfort of your cozy couch.
You Can Enforce Security Protocols
Your team is made up of decent human beings who really, really mean to be data secure, but they’re too tired/hassled/unaware to click that ‘update now’ button. Good news! That’s fine because, back in your IT lair, you can use MDM to enforce OS and software updates as well as the use of passcodes.
Challenge 3: Having Just One Pair of Hands
Dealing with the challenges of managing IT infrastructure isn’t for the weak, and soldering another pair of hands to your wrists won’t help (and would just be gross). Even if you’re lucky enough to head up an IT team, there’s always more to do. So, let’s find ways of having less to do so that you can focus on the big-value strategic stuff.
Solution 1: Automate
Automation is your new best friend. Automation helps you manage your IT infrastructure by saving you and your people time, reducing or eliminating the volume of dull donkeywork you need to do, and reducing human error. Here are some of our favorite ways to automate systems and processes.
Automated Onboarding (and Offboarding)
One of MDM’s shiniest features is the automated enrollment of devices (and people), and as part of your onboarding pipeline, it gets your new hires enrolled safely, welcomed, and productive in under an hour. Not only does this give your new hire a smooth first day, but it means your days of manually configuring devices in a dusty basement are gone forever.
Automated Encryption
Hackers love unencrypted devices, so why not use MDM to make a hacker cry? MDM comes with a side order of automated encryption in two flavors: FileVault and BitLocker. Simply set it and forget it for a bit. Your people won’t have to remember to encrypt their files, and you won’t have to remember that thing you’ve already forgotten.
Solution 2: Outsource
Outsourcing some of your IT activities can be a good solution to IT infrastructure management challenges. It’s especially useful if you don’t have in-house expertise or want to free up your staff from IT-admin-type duties for more strategic or developmental tasks. Service level agreements ensure that you and your supplier understand what’s expected of each other and set out the scope and speed of service. You can outsource as much or as little as you want, including:
- Cloud IT support
- MDM management
- IT Helpdesk support
- Phishing training
- IT security and monitoring
- Gap remediation
- Spares management
- Onboarding and offboarding
Getting a Grasp on Your IT Infrastructure
Shameful plug: Ignition can help with all this stuff and more! Start by giving us a call. We won’t make you buy anything, but we will be delighted to talk you down from the roof if you’re struggling with the challenges of managing IT infrastructure. Whatever stage your business is at, whatever challenges you’re dealing with, we’d love to share our expertise with you.
Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Call us now–chatting about IT support and cybersecurity is our favorite thing to do!