Overcoming IT Complexity

Overcoming IT Complexity

by Lee Atchison
Released December 2022
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9781492098492

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Book description

The cloud promises cost savings, agility, and more. But the increasing complexity of modern IT systems often prevents businesses from realizing the outcomes they sought by moving to the cloud in the first place. At the core of this complexity is technical debt. Ad hoc decisions, traditional approaches, and "quick and dirty" solutions add up to fragile, more complex systems (and organizations)--reducing the pace of change, driving up costs, and degrading security. To succeed in the cloud, you first have to manage the problems IT complexity creates. This practical guide will help.

If you're tasked with designing, delivering, or approving IT systems that support business growth, this book will teach you the principles and strategies you need to break out of silos, reassess traditional thinking, provide the business a better competitive position, and achieve cloud success across the company.

You'll learn:

  • How to assess your current IT environment to identify complexity-centered risks
  • How to structure cross-functional teams to reduce friction points
  • How to create a framework for IT investments that's aligned with your business goals
  • How to measure your outcomes for continued success
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    Table of contents

    1. Foreword
      1. The Growing Complexity of IT Environments
    2. Preface
      1. More Information
      2. O’Reilly Online Learning
      3. How to Contact Us
      4. Acknowledgments
    3. 1. What Is the Modern IT Complexity Dilemma?
      1. The Structure of Modern IT Organizations
        1. The Role of Software Development in IT Organizations
        2. Development and Operations in the IT Organization
      2. The Advent of Complexity
        1. Technical Debt: The Key to Complexity
        2. The Organizational Pain of Complexity
        3. Complexity in an IT Organization
        4. IT Death
        5. What Makes a Mature IT Organization
      3. Summary
    4. 2. Auditing and Assessing Your IT Ecosystem
      1. Auditing Versus Assessment
      2. What Do You Measure?
      3. Why Do You Measure?
        1. Measure-Try-Measure-Refine
        2. The Benefits of Measurement
      4. How Deep Do You Measure?
      5. Adaptive Assessment
        1. The Value of an Adaptive Assessment
        2. Creating an Adaptive Assessment
        3. Decisions Based on Adaptive Assessments
        4. Loose Coupling
      6. Examples of Adaptive Assessments
        1. Example 1: The Brainstorming Adaptive Assessment
        2. Example 2: The Cloud Tagging Adaptive Assessment
      7. The Survey Analogy
      8. Summary
    5. 3. Moving to an Adaptive Architecture
      1. Adaptive Architectures
      2. Adaptive Architectures in Action
        1. Autoscaling
        2. Self-Healing
        3. Infrastructure as Code
        4. Developing in a Production-Like Environment
        5. Load Testing
      3. Cost of Adaptive Architecture in Increased Complexity
      4. Example: Reducing Complexity with Tiered Security
      5. Summary
    6. 4. Managing Knowledge
      1. Knowledge Variability: Choice Versus Complexity
      2. Managing Knowledge Requirements
      3. Centralized Configuration
        1. Maintaining a Centralized Single Source of Truth
        2. Are You in Control?
      4. Reuse
        1. Pattern 1: Copy/Paste Reuse
        2. Pattern 2: Layered/Template Reuse
      5. Example: Router Configuration Files
      6. Summary
    7. 5. Creating Your Technology Investment Framework
      1. Technology Investment Framework Categories
      2. IT Investment Example: Are You in the Datacenter Business?
      3. IT Investment Example: Should You Be in the Logistics Business?
      4. IT Investment Example: How Can You Leverage Strength to Transform?
      5. Shifting Investments
      6. Summary
    8. 6. Starting the Conversation
    9. Index
    10. About the Author

    Product information

    • Title: Overcoming IT Complexity
    • Author(s): Lee Atchison
    • Release date: December 2022
    • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
    • ISBN: 9781492098492