What You Should Know About the Business IT Lifecycle

Computers and network hardware wear out. It’s a fact. The trouble is, it’s difficult to know when they've reached the end of their useful life. 

Human nature tends to embrace the adage “If it isn't broke, don’t fix it.” While that sounds good at a gut level, it’s not the best way to run a business or an IT department. More than almost any equipment your company uses, IT hardware gets outdated very quickly due to advances in technology and ever-more-demanding software applications. So paying attention to the lifecycle of your IT infrastructure is key to staying secure and productive as an organization.

Proactive IT Lifecycle Management Is Non-Negotiable

If you’d like to make the most of your technology investments without introducing risk — either of a catastrophic infrastructure failure or a cybersecurity incident —- into your business, you’re talking about proper IT lifecycle management. 

However, what that means for your hardware and software is slightly different…

How To Manage Your Software Lifecycle

Using outdated or unpatched software always carries risks, and those risks typically aren’t worth running. 

Fortunately, cloud computing has made it much easier to keep up with the software lifecycle. Updates are provided automatically, and many companies can make license management relatively painless. 

That said, you can’t go on autopilot entirely. While software as a service (SaaS) solutions reduce many traditional lifecycle management tasks, you still need to pay regular attention to vendor management, any integration challenges, and your business’s evolving needs to make sure you’re still getting the ROI you’re paying for.

How To Manage Your Hardware Lifecycle

Computers and network hardware reach a point in their lifecycle when they become disablers rather than enablers in production. Over time, they also become security risks as companies quit developing security patches and shift resources to new products and the maintenance of those items. 

There are two main ways technology becomes outdated:

1. New software or hardware simply outpaces the capabilities of the current device which means the users are affected negatively vs. positively in terms of employee production
2. The manufacturers simply stop supporting the devices for “new versions” of software and stop fixing security or software bugs because they are focused on the newer versions.

There is a potential third item to add to that list, and that’s warranty. Often technology is sold with 36 months of warranty/support. And although you can pay to extend those warranties to 60 months, it’s important to understand the business impact when technology is not working. Take a customer that has gone paperless with their ordering system, if their network or servers go offline for even two days while trying to get a replacement device that’s no longer under a four-hour warranty, the business impact would be 10x or more than the cost of maintaining equipment new enough to stay under warranty.

PC Replacement 

Once we get beyond the conversation of “it’s still working so why do I have to replace it?” we can start talking numbers. Take your PCs and laptops first. They should be replaced roughly every three to five years. 

I was working with one client who had an older, outdated computer. When working on a weekly, data-intensive task, she spent about an hour and 15 minutes to complete the project. I thought that seemed too long and suggested they replace the PC with a more current model. After updating, she was able to complete the task in about 20 minutes, which made her much more productive. That computer paid for itself in eight months.

Smartphones and Tablet Replacement

Smart devices tend to have shorter lifecycles than traditional business hardware — just 2-3 years. They have their own security needs, and they also need to be securely disposed of when they’re past their useful life. 

I’ll get into secure disposal a bit later. However, if your business relies on smart devices to help staff perform critical tasks, you may want to look into Microsoft Intune to give you greater control of which devices can access which systems, and when.

Server Replacement Best Practices

The lifecycle for servers used to be simple. A physical server would have a three-year warranty and then you could extend it with the vendor to five years. After that period of time, the server might be OK, but those parts would be prohibitively more expensive. Because manufacturers create and manufacture new technology in mass quantities, the cost is driven down. So over time, the cost to manufacture the older technology in smaller batches goes up, causing five year old parts to be 5-10x more expensive than the new stuff that is currently shipping.

The manufacturers typically stop making replacement parts after five years and no longer support the hardware. You also need to take into account the operating system. Microsoft’s operating systems are on about a three-year cycle as new ones replace older versions. They would support the older operating system for about three years after the new one comes out, so it's important to factor that into your server replacement considerations.

Blade servers help minimize your footprint (reducing heat and power consumption) and allow you to expand the capacity of the server continuously. Virtual servers are software-driven computer servers that duplicate what happens on a physical machine in a virtualized state. They don’t really wear out, but they are subject to ongoing upgrades in the virtual software.

Network Hardware: Routers, Switches, and Firewalls

For routers, switches, and firewalls, plan on a replacement cycle every seven years or so. It’s important to remember that just because a piece of hardware doesn’t appear to have any moving parts, the interior components still degrade over time. And since you can’t tell how worn out they are for the most part, it's important to be proactive in replacing them if you want to avoid system failure. IT hardware can go from working perfectly to perfectly broken in the blink of an eye, and usually without much warning.

You may want to work with an expert to perform a system assessment for network health. These can be very eye-opening.

Considering the Total Cost of Ownership in IT Hardware Management

When your car is up-to-date and well-maintained, you’re probably not paying for more than gas, oil changes, and standard maintenance, and you get a high degree of reliability. Over time, though, those maintenance costs go up and reliability goes down. At some point, your mechanic might tell you it’s no longer worth it to keep it road-worthy, and a new car will ultimately be safer. 

That’s often the case with business hardware, but while most people will recognize when it no longer makes sense to keep throwing good money after bad with an older vehicle, they will often try to keep old technology running as long as possible, and then get frustrated by frequent emergencies, not realizing that these two things are related. So let’s explore the concept of total cost of ownership (TOC) in a bit more detail. 

Your hardware’s TOC includes more than most people think: 

• The initial purchase price and any shipping/delivery costs of the item and any related infrastructure or components
• Installation and setup expenses
• Operating costs, including energy and any supplies
• Maintenance 
• Any training and onboarding costs
• Support and maintenance contracts/extended warranties
• Any emergency repairs 
• Any downtime costs from lost productivity
• Any cybersecurity incidents related to the hardware
• Any additional time spent on integrating modern tools with older hardware
• Data migration costs and downtime
• Insurance costs for protecting valuable IT assets
• Disposal and decommissioning 

Not all of these costs may be applicable. Here’s a simplified TOC formula: 

TCO = Initial Cost + Operational Costs + Maintenance Costs + Upgrade Costs + Disposal Costs

Doing a little bit of math can help make it easy to make purchasing decisions with confidence. It can also help you put older technology in perspective. At a certain point, it doesn’t owe you anything anymore, and there’s a good chance it could cost you more than it’s worth.

What You Should Know About IT Infrastructure Disposal

Hopefully, by now, I’ve convinced you of the reasons why IT infrastructure needs to be decommissioned and safely disposed of before it poses a risk to your business. Unfortunately, even that part isn’t without its own share of problems. Some components may contain hazardous waste, and unless they’re wiped, they may also contain sensitive data. 

When decommissioning your IT hardware, here’s how to do it safely: 

• Develop a decommissioning policy and train staff about environmental and security risks
• Plan for eventual decommissioning when you purchase your hardware
• Conduct regular vendor due diligence on any e-waste recyclers 
• Implement secure data destruction, and consider on-site destruction for highly sensitive data 
• Document everything
• Plan for decommissioning at the time of hardware acquisition
• Stay on top of changing regulations 
• Regularly assess and improve decommissioning processes

How To Build Regular Technology Replacement Into Budget Planning

I always recommend that IT and business managers build the IT lifecycle into the yearly budget. Anticipate replacing about a third of your equipment every year. Yes, that’s a lot, but it’s nothing compared to what you might pay if a critical component fails unexpectedly and you lose a full workday — or more. 

Just remember, computers and servers look fine until they fail. Don’t trust your gut or your human nature. Trust your lifecycle replacement plan and stick to it.

The Secret to More Cost-Effective Technology Replacement

Even if fully managed IT isn’t the right fit for your business, you might want to shop around with technology providers. Larger providers like Marco often form strategic partnerships with top manufacturers and software developers, and they can often pass on the volume discounts they receive to their clients. 

At Marco, we have an online Client Center, where all of our clients can access our recommendations and view their infrastructure. We can also move companies to a Marco Rental Agreement, which allows them to make regular payments over a few years. That way, a business isn’t forced to make a huge payment if a lot of things need to be replaced at the same time. 

However, if what you need most is more to do with planning and direction and less to do with finances, IT consulting services might be a smarter choice. Typically, small to midsize businesses can’t compete for top CISO talent, but would benefit significantly from some regular mentorship about optimizing their tech stack. 

Click the link below to learn more about our new fractional CIO and CISO services!