The State of IT infrastructure - the hidden Viaduct . A rant. [Mar. 15th, 2007|10:09 am] dunsany All right, a post about my career and observations of my nearly twenty years in it; this came to me in the middle of the night in a stroke of midnight clarity.



IT infrastructure is like the Alaska Way Viaduct.



For those of you who live out of Washington State, we are embroiled in an insipid mess about a large traffic causeway that feeds downtown Seattle. It's too old, too narrow and quite ugly. Because of earthquakes and other damage, it's been patched and re-patched to remain functional. But it's on its last legs, and probably won't survive much longer. Beginning to see the analogy?



It gets better.



The mayor of Seattle wants to replace the Viaduct with an expensive new tunnel (think Boston's Big Dig). Others want to rebuild it with a new, better (but still over ground) Viaduct. Other factions want to rip it down altogether and just use expanded surface streets. All of these options will mean seriously diminished service during the transition at an astonishingly high cost.



The governor punted and called for a vote. The vote just failed - with a "No!" for both the tunnel and the elevated structure. No one's really too keen on the surface street option - no way our streets could handle the increased load or an expansion. And it's just plain not feasible to have businesses and citizens change the way they commute without ancillary measures (like better mass transit) in place.



If you're in IT, the analogy should really hit home. IT infrastructure is a layered sandwich of decrepit parts, Scotch-taped together and sagging under increasing demand. Every time a hint of abnormal activity happens - network worm, blackout, major upgrade - the whole thing falls over. But, IT can't work on the infrastructure because everyone depends on it. Every day. For everything. And oh, nevermind, we have no money, anyway.



Too important to lose, too expensive to fix. Catch 22.



How about the corporate leadership? Same as the Viaduct. Same players, different names. The CTO wants to forklift the infrastructure with a fancy new technology (SOA is the hot one of the moment). But no, the CFO won't pay for it. The CEO hurms and haws, passing the buck to committees and consultants to debate. And what is the result? Status quo - we'll fix it next fiscal, when we have more money and a better technology.



And next fiscal becomes next-next fiscal. And so on.



Of course, the solution is for someone to make a half-way decent decision and ramrod it through. Take ownership as well as all the thrown daggers as the project rolls forward, over-budget and past deadline (again, like Big Dig and every IT project I've ever been on). The result will be painful to reach but we'll probably be better off for it. Sadly, leadership and courage are lacking both in politics and in IT management.



Now imagine my job: making all that sagging infrastructure safe and secure, while maintaining its usefulness and cost effectiveness.



I think I'll become a full-time cartoonist instead.