Preface
The complexity of modern IT systems can impact your application’s quality and security.
It’s that simple.
Business pressures have caused IT organizations to focus on creating new applications and adding new features and capabilities to existing applications to meet increasing competitive demands. The result is insufficient time to work on managing, operating, and maintaining existing applications and capabilities. Ignoring ongoing issues increases technical debt, which in turn increases the complexity of modern systems. Increased system complexity makes adding new features and capabilities harder, and the vicious circle continues.
Addressing the IT complexity dilemma is essential, but it is not easy. In this book, we begin by examining this dilemma and how it impacts you, your applications, and your organization. Then we talk about identifying and measuring complexity in your organization today. How can you measure complexity without introducing complex measurement systems? Since you can’t improve a system until you can measure it, this ability is critical to managing IT complexity.
Next, we examine solutions for reducing IT complexity and the cognitive load it induces. We discuss the role of adaptive architectures in modernizing applications, considering both how they can reduce complexity and the risk of increased complexity they may carry.
We then explore how knowledge management techniques can assist in reducing cognitive load and IT complexity, and how your strategy for investing in your infrastructure impacts complexity.
Finally, I provide some advice on how to begin conversations within your organization about the impact of IT complexity on your company, your products, and your applications.
The goal of this book is to give you the tools you need to understand how IT complexity can negatively impact your company and your applications, and how you can break the cycle to effectively manage its effect on your organization.
More Information
This book is just a starting point in your journey to managing your IT systems and experiences. If you want to learn more, feel free to check out the other books, articles, courses, and interviews by the author at leeatchison.com. Also, check out the other great books and online courses O’Reilly Media offers.
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Acknowledgments
While there are more people who helped make this book possible than I could possibly ever list here, I do want to mention several people who were particularly helpful to me.
Ken Gavranovic. The word friend is an understatement. My virtual brother is more descriptive. Ken, always trust the power of monkeys.
Kurt Kufeld, Greg Hart, Scott Green, Patrick Franklin, Suresh Kumar, Colin Bodell, Adam Selipsky, and Andy Jassy. You gave me opportunities at Amazon and AWS I could not have ever imagined.
Bjorn Freeman-Benson, Kevin McGuire, Abner Germanow, Darren Cunningham, Jay Fry, Bharath Gowda. Each of these people, in their own way, contributed significantly to my growing career at New Relic, and ultimately to my ability to work as an independent consultant, author, advisor, and thought leader.
Robson Grieve. Besides giving me huge opportunities at New Relic, he hired me as a consultant when I first put out my shingle—he was literally my first customer. He believed in me. In fact, he believed in me twice.
Jennifer Pollock, my longtime O’Reilly acquisitions editor (recently promoted to senior content director), Megan Laddusaw, my current O’Reilly acquisitions editor, and Gary O’Brien, my development editor for this book. Jennifer, congratulations on your promotion—I always love working with you on projects. Megan, I look forward to many years working with you. Gary, you’ve been a great partner, helping bring this book together.
And finally, and perhaps most significantly, I’d like to thank Mark Menger from F5. Mark spent many hours with me talking through the topics I discuss in this book. His insights were invaluable. Without him, this book would not have happened.