Learn from the Airline Fiascos: Three Top Technology Trends CEOs and IT Directors Need to Know

If the FAA and a major airline can go down because of old and outdated technology, what can your company do? The expert engineers at Matrix Integration identified three major trends that businesses should pay attention to before they have a disaster too.

By Tim Pritchett

A major airline meltdown over the holidays, causing the cancellation of 15,000 flights, was pinned to outdated technology. And then, weeks later, the FAA system experienced a nationwide outage while trying to patch its update its 30-year-old infrastructure.

Our job as engineers is to keep our clients’ infrastructure working and up to date, but even in the best of times this can be difficult. My colleagues and I often get called in for emergency situations, like when a system goes down and the company realizes data hasn’t been backed up for three months. It’s like getting a call to put out a fire, when some proactive maintenance would have prevented the fire in the first place.

Being proactive can be challenging, especially because many factors are out of business’s control. However, you can definitely take some action to keep your business running and your technology safe. The engineering team at Matrix got together to prioritize three top trends we’re seeing right now and offer advice on how to stay ahead of them.

1. Supply chain issues are making it difficult to replace old equipment. Almost everyone is aware of the supply chain issues that have been affecting nearly every industry – and they’re affecting technology too. Hardware is more difficult to source, and this issue will continue into 2023. Companies will need to extend the life of their existing equipment. It may seem basic, but keeping equipment clean and up-to-date with firmware is critical. Other tactics include logging every activity, patching, updating, and keeping track of service agreement deadlines. In one case, we found that half the hard drives in a new client’s server farm had already failed and their support contract had ended six years ago. Don’t let this happen to you!
2. Getting a cybersecurity insurance policy requires much more. Another area to be proactive is with your cybersecurity insurance policy. Insurers are continuing to increase their requirements to sell policies, and we often see businesses scrambling to get the right protections in place to meet insurance company deadlines. Make sure you know when your policies are coming up for review. They will audit you, and you need to be ahead of the curve to avoid being dropped from your insurance carrier. Without a policy, you could lose thousands, if not millions of dollars in a cyber attack.
3. The “Edge” requires updates in almost every area of IT. Many of our clients are ready to take advantage of edge computing, and those upgrades affect nearly every aspect of their IT infrastructure. Our engineers see the way that the edge is pushing everything, including security needs, speed requirements and capacity requirements. An influx of Big Data management activities directly affects the datacenter, and we want our clients to be able to handle those requirements.

What trends have you seen in the tech space, and how is your company handling them? Contact us today to discuss how we can help you get more proactive about your tech infrastructure, to keep small issues from becoming major disasters.