Legacy Hardware & Software - A Dangerous Decision

Recent studies show that as many as 93% of companies today are using at least some sort of cloud-based technology, although certainly some way more than others. Because of this, you may be thinking that these companies are also moving away from on-site servers and hardware, but this is not happening anywhere as quickly as you might expect. Many companies still keep their servers on-site, often running them as virtual machines. (Virtual servers: partitioning the servers into highly segregated segments and using each segments as if it were a separate server.) While keeping your servers on-self may not in itself be problematic, although there are certainly advantages to off-site storage, the problem we often see is that this equipment is aging, what we call “legacy hardware” – a nice way of saying it’s getting older and older.

There are a number of reasons why people hold on to legacy hardware from budget, to compatibility with older versions of software, to “it’s working fine.” While it has never been a good idea to hold on to aging equipment from productivity and uptime perspectives, today, such a decision could actually be catastrophic.

Even with all the discussion going on in tech circles about the necessity of multiple back-ups and off-site storage, estimates show that as many as 77% of companies are not actually prepared to completely restore their data in the event of a crash…and this includes companies using IT service providers. Smaller companies, which make up the majority of US firms, are more at risk than larger companies simply because they don’t have adequate personnel resources to manage, monitor and maintain.

Some of the lowest hanging fruit for cyber-criminals are legacy servers running legacy applications. In one survey taken just a few years ago, 96% of all the applications that were tested had at least one major security vulnerability, with a median of 14 vulnerabilities per application. While a company may save some money today by putting off upgrading to newer,  safer hardware and software, this could end up being a very expensive decision. Ransom ware is a major threat these days, and the vulnerabilities presented by legacy hardware and software often open the door to these attacks.

Legacy hardware also runs slower than newer ones. This decreases productivity by increasing response time. This affects competitiveness as well as employee frustration. Your older system doesn’t have the computing power of newer ones, which limits your ability to take advantage of powerful applications such as data analytics or collaboration tools.

A scary scenario: many companies believe they have been upgraded to newer versions of hardware and/or software, and only when there is a serious problem do they find out that many important functions are still being handled by an old server in the back of the office. If your company hasn’t had a recent IT assessment and risk analysis, you should speak to a managed IT support company that provides this type of comprehensive review free of charge. If serious vulnerabilities are discovered, this same managed IT services provider can outline short and long-term plans that can protect your company and your budget.

Selection of an outsourced IT company is a very important business decision. For more than a quarter century, Atlanta’s small to midsized businesses have relied on DynaSis’ for managed IT services, Internet security, IT assessments and 24 x 7 x 365 helpdesk support. Today, with cybercrime becoming an ever-increasing threat, DynaSis has become an industry leader in network protection and ransomware prevention. Please take a tour through our website at www.DynaSis.com or speak with a technical expert at 678.373.0716.