The pace of technological updates and changes is faster than ever in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially with the digital transformation process. Under the pressure of creating digital replicas of entities, IT infrastructure must change its architecture to become intelligent, flexible, and quickly adaptable to each application's purpose. This requires administrators to have comprehensive knowledge and skills, understanding everything about applications from hardware to operations to make correct decisions.
The prevalence of smart devices, especially smartphones, has changed the IT application habits of most users. For businesses, the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) culture is becoming widespread and strong. Behind these conveniences lies heavy pressure on IT teams to ensure readiness, meeting the demand for access to applications anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
Alongside the explosion of technology and connectivity are constantly increasing risks in information security. Cyberattacks are not just random but can be targeted attacks with tactics and tools tailored to each specific case. To respond to information security threats, the administration team must continuously monitor system operations while constantly updating, reinforcing the system, applying security patches, and potentially testing the system's intrusion prevention capabilities.
Challenges in operational process and compliance
To ensure the most basic requirement for IT, which is safe and continuous operation, the operation of IT systems requires the implementation of various processes. These processes are necessary to prevent and mitigate risks that could affect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information, which are the organization's assets. However, in practice, compliance with operational processes remains modest, especially for non-IT companies. The consequences may include undetected intrusions for extended periods, system crashes due to hardware failures, and even the inability to recover due to incomplete backup data. During operations, businesses cannot avoid IT incidents. When incidents occur, coordinating with multiple units—different product manufacturers and service providers—and managing these units to identify the cause and resolve the issue can be difficult and time-consuming. This can lead to business disruptions or even financial losses.
Challenges in IT force
Ensuring the safe and continuous operation of IT systems requires more than just investing in products and technology solutions; it needs a comprehensive approach that includes processes, technology, and humans working together systematically and efficiently. Therefore, even with modern technology, businesses still depend on effective system management capabilities.
In the context of rapidly changing technology, administrators must constantly update their knowledge, concepts, and skills. Additionally, the pressure to innovate and quickly deploy new IT applications for business operations demands that system administrators possess deep, broad, and versatile expertise (full stack engineers). In Vietnam, the shortage of skilled IT forces and a high employee turnover rate of over 25% make recruiting and retaining talent become a significant challenge for organizations.
Considering the scale of IT infrastructure and the corresponding operational resources, meeting the basic requirement of safe and continuous operation can cause overload for the team, leaving little time for professional development and system upgrades. IT teams often face incidents and routine tasks that prevent them from focusing on strategic IT projects.