Skills crisis or maintenance issue? IT failures in 2023

With various high-profile application outages recently, it’s easy to focus on the immediate technology issues. Sanjay Radia at NETSCOUT argues that we should explore a connection to the IT talent drought

 

It’s no secret that a broad range of industries has been impacted by technical problems of late. In June, the UK grid operator’s computer systems failed – disrupting electricity matching for supply with demand. In addition, while some would think Apple is exempt from these types of service issues, they would be wrong – as the Apple Weather app breaks down frequently.

 

Back in February, there was an IT fault at German airline Lufthansa that caused chaos – and serious flight delays across the entirety of the airline group. There were major travel disruptions and passengers were left scrambling to return home.

 

The fallout of this disruption is extensive. From travellers being stuck overseas, to students losing valuable lesson time, to lost income or decreased work efficiency, the ripple effect can last for days or even weeks.

 

Also, when critical infrastructure and services are hit with technical problems, reputational damage can quickly follow. People need to be able to trust that their key services will be online and operating properly – and when they don’t, it can have a negative impact on shareholder value and revenue.

 

While network and service outages may dominate the news headlines, we are also seeing reports of redundancies across technology roles and the resulting IT talent drought. So, could there be a link here? It’s easy to place the onus on ineffective, or lack of, IT maintenance, but the real issue might be the ongoing IT skills shortage. Whatever the case, the connection is worth exploring.

 

The statistics are in, 77 per cent of employers globally have reported challenges when adding the required skilled talent, with the worldwide talent shortage now reaching a whopping 17-year high – the 2023 Global Talent Shortage report illustrates this. Focusing on IT specifically, over 70 per cent of employers cannot find the skilled talent they need.

 

Firms should be meticulous when analysing their IT departments. For example, have contractors been extensively trained in company procedures regarding troubleshooting? Do they have comprehensive knowledge about the in-house application or network in question? Equally, do they have the amount of expertise needed to spot an emerging problem?

 

In the 2022 (ISC)² Cyber-security Workforce Study, the size of the global cyber-security workforce was estimated at 4.7 million people. However, researchers found that the cyber-security sector is still lacking and is urgently in need of more professionals to fill the void – a mighty worldwide gap of 3.4 million cyber-security workers. These vast skilled-staff shortages and issues with inexperienced team members are a huge challenge when trying to resolve compromised networks and applications.

 

And IT professionals can’t be everywhere at all times. The next best alternative has been to add visibility to critical parts of the network, such as internet access links, data centres, application server farms, public cloud, contact centres, colocation facilities and around firewalls and VPN gateways, to name a few. Where there is a gap in local IT staff, many firms are choosing the visibility route.

 

In a slightly different approach, some organisations are trying to upskill non-IT staff on certain processes and technologies to build a resilient internal team capable of plugging some of the more urgent IT skills gaps. This is attractive because it is cost-effective and by enlisting current staff members, organisations can benefit from their existing knowledge of processes and the workplace environment.

 

IT organisations tasked with delivering the availability and performance of applications need everyone – be it staff or contractors – to be briefed on future maintenance and updates. Troubleshooting, automation, and mitigation of security challenges can be improved when teams examine network traffic at scale.

 

The surveillance of network traffic on a large scale can play a vital role in automating, resolving, and addressing performance and security concerns. Ensuring that issues are promptly directed to the appropriate teams, along with a clear understanding of the performance or security risks involved, is crucial for minimising service downtime.

 

Organisations should adopt a 360-degree strategy to ensure that all teams receive adequate training and are ready to respond effectively to service disruptions, preventing the high-profile failures that have become so prevalent in recent times.

 

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Sanjay Radia is Chief Solutions Architect at NETSCOUT 

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com