Applications are a lot like icebergs.
Users see the tip – or in the case of applications, the display layer – but not the massive, critical underpinnings below the surface; and in both cases, ignoring the invisible can be catastrophic.
In an Enterprise application today, just a few clicks and swipes can allow an employee to request vacation time, a manager to approve it, and the HR payroll system to take note of the PTO. These simple, efficient transaction application interfaces can make it easy for anyone outside of IT to forget all the complexities that prop it up behind the scenes – until the app crashes.
Applications can power customer purchases, people management, internal communications, sales, and operations, and when they fail, the results can be catastrophic.
The average cost of an infrastructure failure is an estimated $100,000 per hour, according to a report by IDC based on a survey of Fortune 1000 business leaders. Last year, The New Stack cautioned IT experts just before Cyber Monday to be wary of seasonal catastrophes as well, using the example of retailer powerhouse Walmart, a company who, according to The New Stack, would lose $400,000 in online sales in just 10 minutes of downtown.
But even if you don’t have a customer base the size of Walmart or rely on Cyber Monday to make your sales numbers, keeping your apps up and running is a key part of maintaining a flawless customer experience, freeing employees to focus on core competencies, and enabling your IT leaders to focus on innovation. These potential pitfalls of application infrastructure failure are why many organizations employ our Genies to help expertly manage application infrastructure – to avoid these disasters even if they don’t have the in-house IT staff to tackle it.
What is the application infrastructure?
Remember that iceberg we were talking about earlier? Application infrastructure is everything beneath the water, propping up the part that is visible.
The application infrastructure is the platform that supports enterprise applications and enables them to work together – across thousands of users and multiple countries. This includes application development, application deployment, and application management – including any computation and operations that enable users to simply click buttons instead of writing in code.
In addition, it involves any intrusion detection systems, web servers, firewalls, servers, and file storage – all of which should be approached with cybersecurity top of mind.
Application infrastructure may be developed on-premise as part of an organization’s IT infrastructure, or delivered on a cloud-based infrastructure.
What are the benefits of actively managing your application infrastructure?
Managing your application infrastructure can protect your business – and doing so with a team of already experienced IT experts like our Genies can enhance those benefits, as we’ll follow best practices in application development from start to finish. Here are some of the key benefits when you partner with a savvy PHP or java application development company to spearhead your application infrastructure management and plan ahead for security, growth, and scheduled improvements:
- Minimize risk. It’s our job to be compliance and security experts, and we can fold that into our development to ensure you’re managing risk as much as possible.
- Designing for tomorrow. We have the experience to design infrastructure that meets your business needs today and will grow with you for tomorrow. Avoid unnecessary downtime or repairs with proactive approaches at the start.
- Build maintenance into your budget. When you actively manage your application infrastructure, you can build in ongoing management into your IT budget, rather than being blindsided by cost repairs or development needs that crop up unexpectedly.
- Focus expertise. When your business leaders are grappling with limited resources, leaders are already spread thin. Enable them to focus on core business challenges and let our IT-savvy Genies focus the IT expertise.
Don’t let application failure freeze your business growth and innovation. Contact info@techgenies.com today to start a conversation about how we can help establish the application infrastructure management your business needs today, and as you grow.
