Technical debt has become a concern for businesses of all sizes across their data centers and network and security infrastructure. Although it might be unavoidable, there are ways to lighten the weight of tech debt on IT execs’ shoulders.

A 2023 IDG survey found that tech debt has become the No. 2 issue for IT executives, second only to skills shortages. IDG defines tech debt as "the measure of the cost of reworking a solution caused by choosing an easy, yet limited, solution."

Of the 400 IT executives surveyed, 86% reported having been impacted by technical debt in the previous 12 months.

“I would say that most companies will have some form of technical debt, and it stems from risk management or fear of the unknown, that mentality that what I have today works,” said Soni Jiadani, corporate VP for AMD's Networking Solutions business.

Many executives shy away from adopting new technology within critical or risk-heavy operations for fear that switching to something new might cause more problems than standing still.

“As human beings, we want to fit into our comfort zone. And we, by nature, get jittery when we deal with things like risk,” Jiandani said. Coupled with the pace of innovation across industries, this makes tech debt “inevitable.”

Even though instances of data center outages have gone down in recent years, the cost of failure has gone up, Jiandani added. The IDG survey showed 43% of executives said tech debt led to limited ability to innovate, while 41% experience difficulty meeting service level agreements (SLAs) and 37% said they deal with outages and downtime.

“This holds true for all facets of the technology industry. Any company 10 years ago, if they had not bet on technology, would not have survived,” Jiandani told SDxCentral. “Every company has had to be a technology company. What does that mean? It means that today we are dependent more and more on technology.”

And business dependencey on technology will continue to grow, so the onus falls upon IT executives like CISOs and CIO to keep their infrastructure efficient and up to date as innovation barrels ahead – a responsibility Jiandani noted has only gotten more consequential.

Reject the ‘if ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality

With today’s pace of innovation, the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality leaves many businesses buried in debt. “Before you know it, a certain technology will pass you by,” Jiandani said.

Executives need to make quick decisions on whether new technologies can solve their business needs or problems, not just in the moment but in a year or two down the road. To do this, Jiandani suggests IT teams build some essential questions into “the hygiene of their business.”

The first question to ask: What is the nature of the workloads that your business is running and where are the current inefficiencies?

“Start with an in-depth analysis of where you are today and what your business needs are for critical operations," she said. "Where are the gaps in where my business workloads are going today and where they're going to go in the future."

For example, some workloads run more efficiently in the cloud, whereas others are more efficient to secure within an on-premises data center.

The second question, Jiandani said, should be “what is the risk tolerance for my organization?” Based on a company’s risk tolerance and current security posture, executives should identify weakest links in their infrastructure to determine where they need to stay ahead of tech debt.

Lastly, businesses should ask how much a tech upgrade costs and where to prioritize their budget.

Asking these questions consistently, rather than in the face of a critical problem, will help businesses stay ahead of the game. “Make it a habit to be asking these questions as opposed to reacting, and then you don't have to make an all or nothing decision,” Jiandani said.

Don’t panic! Take the incremental approach

According to Jiandani, tech debt accumulates when teams feel compelled to have a quick fix for a problem (like a breach or an outage) instead of looking for long-term solutions. This often happens because long-term solutions require major changes to infrastructure that can mean longer periods of time to deployment and more spending.

However, executives need to have the forethought to plan for solutions that don’t cause overwhelming tech debt in the long run and don’t present unmanageable cost or risk in the short term.

Taking an incremental approach is the best way to do this without disrupting current operations, Jiandani said. IT teams should pick the parts of their infrastructure where they want to see the biggest impact on business outcomes, and then roll out more upgrades to the rest of your infrastructure gradually.

“You cannot rest on the laurels of what was done three years ago, five years ago, because innovation and technology is moving very fast. So you have to have the ability and the appetite to say ‘I'm not going to go and do a full-blown upgrade of my network. It is too disruptive,’” she added.

Tech debt is unavoidable to a certain extent, but it should not be a weight that CIOs and other IT decision makers carry with them forever, Jiandani said. Businesses need to end what she calls the “technical debt shame cycle” if they are going to mitigate these challenges.

“Yes, when something goes wrong, the instinct is to fix it right away," Jiandani said. "So fix it, but then step back after it's fixed to understand this now as an opportunity for you to think about a new way of solving the problem because now technology has evolved.”

Hold your providers accountable

While the prospect of dealing with tech debt is intimidating, executives should expect vendors to take their share of the responsibility. In competitive markets, vendors are often most focused on building disruptive technologies. As they do so, Jiandani said, vendors have a duty to keep in mind “not only an architectural view, but also how they can ease the ability for new innovations to be embraced within the customer base.”

The onus is also on vendors to make products easier to consume, to fit into a customer's existing environments before they can flip the switch and upgrade.

And enterprise customers can’t be shy in holding vendors accountable.

“When choosing a vendor, ask the tricky questions, such as how would this fit into my current stack? What is practical? What are the best practices that you recommend as a partner? Show me by teaching me through other customers’ case studies how I can embrace some of those best practices,” Jiandani added.