Are You Holding Any Toxic IT Assets

(Note: This is a reprint from our April 2009 Newsletter)

We have been hearing a lot recently about “Toxic Assets” with respect to the financial crisis. Without getting into too much detail these “Toxic Assets” might be described, by the layman, as financial instruments which were so complicated that it was almost impossible for the holder of the “asset” to actually define what the asset was, and how much it was realistically worth.

It might seem like drawing a long bow, but to us it is quite similar in many ways to issues that organizations have when looking at their IT assets. There are the assets everyone has a familiarity and a basic understanding of – like the PC on their desktop. They know when it is new it goes faster, and as it gets old it slows down. When it breaks, the things they cannot do become apparent and the user generally knows whether they can work around it with another system etc. Because the PC is in everyone's face almost every day there is a pretty good understanding of the importance of these assets.

But then there are the systems that are hidden from view. Everyone knows that servers are important. What is often overlooked is which servers are actually doing important work. For example, a scenario we sometimes encounter (particularly with new customers) is that having exceeded the capacity of one server, they have gone out and bought another server. Rather than replacing the first server, they have simply made the second an adjunct to it. So rather than relying on one server, the organization is relying on two, one of which is probably already overdue for retirement.

There are many reasons this happens. Sometimes it is hard to get some software off the original server, or no one understands how it works anymore. There is also the reality that migrations from old to new equipment are generally more expensive than the initial first installation.

Sometimes this strategy works – the services provided by the old server are subsumed before it fails through natural attrition or new versions of other products provide the same feature. But often times, that old server just sits in the corner with no one actually knowing the important job that it continues to do until one day, without warning (excepting the bit where it is 5 years old), it suddenly gives up.

Understanding the impact when one of these technical assets goes “toxic” takes a combination of not only technical knowledge (what does the assets do, is there an easy contemporary replacement, how much of its configuration was unique), but also business knowledge (what happens when that service is no longer available).

Avoiding this situation takes a little effort, but is not something that is unmanageable. There are a few easy steps:

1. Understand how old your systems are.
2. Have a rough understanding of what all your systems do.
3. When migrating make sure pressure is applied for a clean and complete migration that doesn't leave ageing systems in place.
4. If a function performed by an old server is absolutely necessary and cannot be migrated to a newer server or device then replace the ageing system with new hardware.

This last step, while not desirable, is sometimes the only option. We have tools and techniques that let us achieve this in almost every circumstance so if you think you have a “toxic asset” that needs treatment then let us know.