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Stop the Presses: Managing Data Infrastructure Comes into Its Own

One of the immutable laws of the universe is that today's technology innovation is tomorrow's commodity. It is a cycle that has repeated itself ever since the first caveman invented the wheel, only to see his neighbor improve upon the development process then begin mass-producing them. Since then that cycle has accelerated. Take the introduction of the printing press by Johan Gutenberg in 1436.

Until his invention, disseminating written information was an extremely time-consuming and costly task, as each copy had to be made by hand. As a result, written materials were expensive and hard to come by, limiting the ability to reach a large audience. It also tended to limit the incentive for average citizens to become literate.

Once the printing press came along, those with something to say had a means of reaching out to a larger audience. Owning a press gave those who could afford it a huge advantage over those who could not. Thus, while it was easier to create mass copies of a document, it was still the province of the wealthy - or those with a wealthy patron.

At the same time, it was up to the writer to become an expert in printing technology in order to keep the presses running. This meant he spent less of his time thinking great thoughts and more time tinkering with the mechanism.

Then came a paradigm shift - a separation between the content creators/writers and the printers. Shops began to spring up all over to accommodate the demand for printing, and along with volume and selection came competition. Ultimately, access to a printing press went from being a strategic advantage to a commodity that can be purchased anywhere. While some organizations - notably large metropolitan newspapers - still own their own presses, most printing today is done in shops that have nothing to do with the creation of the original content. That part of the process is driven and managed by an outsourced firm.

In the information age, data technology has become the new printing. Once considered a strategic advantage over manual business processes, today it is the way that business is conducted. In many ways, data is a commodity.

Yet the infrastructure to manage that data often resembles that of those fifteenth-century publishers. It is an entirely internal system that relies on internal resources to keep it running. While it's true that data is the lifeblood of the organization and thus can't be ignored - especially for those in transaction-heavy industries such as retailing - the resources that are brought in to solve today's problems are often being pulled from projects that are critical to the organization's future. In many cases, given the tedium of the data work versus the high level of skills required to work on the future projects, they are essentially using a bazooka to kill a mosquito. In the meantime, those high-level projects stall.

As with the printing press example, in recent months a new alternative has surfaced that takes care of the day-to-day needs of the organization while allowing the IT visionaries to continue doing what they do best, unencumbered by necessary but monotonous tasks. Dubbed data infrastructure management (IM), it offloads responsibility to an outside company which provides 24x7x365 monitoring, maintenance and on-demand support for critical data transaction systems - all while keeping operating costs controlled and predictable.

At the Flick of a Switch

Generally speaking, technology that stores, routes, and manages data is no longer recognized as a business advantage - it is an expectation. The advantage comes with being able to manipulate the data through next generation options such as data warehouses and business intelligence in order to glean information that helps set the business strategy. Yet much of an organization's IT resources are still being drawn into keeping the data system running rather than deriving new insights from it.

The new data IM providers offer the same option for data. Rather than pulling high-level IT personnel off of key strategic projects whenever the system goes down, the organization allows the data IM provider to diagnose and solve the problem - usually in less time than it takes to page internal personnel and get them looking into it.

With printing, the only thing an organization putting out a new brochure has to care about is that at the end of the process the piece was done correctly. Now, businesses have that same option for their data.

Reducing Scope Creep

One of the biggest concerns in the IT world is scope creep - a project you thought would take x amount of time is now going to take 3x. While there can be many causes, certainly a major contributor is the unavailability of the worker resources to do the expected work because they've been brought in to solve a different problem.

Working with a data IM provider helps reduce scope creep by keeping the personnel working on those projects from being pulled into day-to-day operational tasks. It also helps the personnel increase job satisfaction by relieving them of much of the mundane, unchallenging work with which they've previously been saddled. In the end, IT personnel are allowed to keep their focus where it belongs, delivering high impact projects with high potential ROI faster and with improved results.

Outsourcing versus Data IM

While in a sense they are similar, in practice there is a vast difference between traditional outsourcing and the new generation of data IM providers.

In a typical outsourcing arrangement, internal resources assigned to manage the data infrastructure are replaced "one-to-one" with outside resources. This strategy is essentially reactive and often lowers the service level without providing the expected payback.

With data IM, you are not purchasing a resource to manage the system but rather an organization that will automate many of the tasks. The data IM provider will set service thresholds that indicate concerns before the system is down and make adjustments as needed to provide uninterrupted service. Should a sudden event occur, they have the resources, expertise and documentation to diagnose problems quickly and restore service with minimum downtime - 24x7x365.

In short, you have an entire expert organization working behind the scenes to keep your business running smoothly.

Automation is the Key

In any endeavor, the more specialized the knowledge and the bigger experience base the people in it have to draw from, the better they'll be able to anticipate problems and set up systems to avoid them.

This is another advantage data IM providers have over internal resources or typical outsourcers. A normal organization may deal with a handful of databases, while an outsourcer might work with 10x that amount. But a data IM provider literally works with thousands of databases every day. As a result, they have much better insight into what makes them work, and thus are able to automate many tasks and functions that are normally performed manually.

This automation ensures smooth operations and low costs. It also makes it easy to be sure your organization is following best practices for data management - because best practices are built into the service.

Let the Thinkers Think

The introduction of readily accessible mass printing ushered in a new era of efficiency and opportunity that led directly to the age of enlightenment. Today, the information age is poised for a similar breakthrough.

While data may be the lifeblood of the organization, managing the infrastructure around that data is not. For savvy IT managers, the availability of data IM providers should be like a beacon in the dark, pointing the way to a brighter future where data is used and leveraged, not just collected.

Removing the responsibility for day-to-day maintenance will give your best thinkers the focus they need to deliver the best ideas and help you achieve your business goals.


John Bostick is president and chief executive officer of dbaDIRECT, which provides data infrastructure management services to Fortune 1000 and Private 500 firms including ABN-Amro, Warner Brothers, Brookstone and AlbertoCulver. He has more than 25 years of industry experience. Contact him at john.bostick@dbadirect.com. 

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