Outdated Tech? What Businesses Can Learn From the Airline Fiascos in 2023: Three Top Trends CEOs and IT Directors Need to Know to Avoid IT Disasters

​Within the last several weeks, old and outdated tech has grounded planes and snarled airline traffic nationwide. If maintaining IT infrastructure and updating IT systems is so difficult for some of the most essential services in the country, how can everyday businesses and services expect to keep up? The answer is getting proactive, according to the expert team of engineers at Matrix Integration, a strategic IT infrastructure partner for more than 1,000 businesses and schools in the Midwest and beyond. Working closely with their clients, Matrix’s engineers have identified three major trends that businesses need to address in 2023 to keep their systems up to date and avoid major shutdowns that could cost millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Tim Pritchett, engineer operations manager at Matrix, is also a former CTO who is focused on helping clients keep their mission-critical data safe and operations running smoothly.

“We always get calls for emergency situations, like when a system goes down and the company realizes data hasn’t been backed up for three months,” said Pritchett. “It’s like getting a call to put out a fire, when some proactive maintenance would have prevented the fire in the first place.”

Stay Proactive to Combat These Market Trends
Outdated IT and infrastructure have been identified as a major reason for the air traffic issues in recent days and weeks. The engineers at Matrix Integration have recognized three major challenges that are trending in their clients’ businesses, and recommend a number of ways to stay ahead of technology meltdowns.
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1. Supply chain issues are making it difficult to replace old equipment. Keeping technology up to date is challenging when hardware is difficult to source, and this issue will continue into 2023. This means that companies need to extend the life of their existing equipment. “Keeping equipment clean and up-to-date with firmware is key,” said Rex Weisheit, a network engineer at Matrix Integration. Another tip: logging activities like patching, updating and service agreement deadlines. In one case, the Matrix team found that half the hard drives in a client’s server farm had already failed and their support had ended six years ago. “This is something the Matrix team can help with, but companies can do themselves if they have the time and capacity,” said Cody Beadles, Matrix engineer.
2. Cybersecurity insurance is demanding more.  Cybersecurity insurance is a necessary business expense today, insurance issuers are continuing to increase their requirements to issue a policy. Pritchett and his team often see businesses scrambling to get protections in place to meet insurance company deadlines. “Make sure you know when your policies are coming up for review,” said Pritchett. “They will audit you, and you need to be ahead of the curve to avoid being dropped from your insurance carrier.” And, without a policy, businesses could lose thousands, if not millions of dollars if a system is hacked.
3. The “Edge” requires updates in almost every area of IT. If a company is ready to take advantage of computing in an edge environment, that upgrade affects nearly every aspect of its IT infrastructure. “The edge is pushing everything,” said Beadles. “This includes security needs, speed requirements and capacity requirements. We’re seeing an influx of Big Data management which starts to directly affect the datacenter.”

          For more information on Matrix Integration or trends in enterprise-level IT, visit matrixintegration.com.