In part 1 of Life Cycle Management considerations, we discussed the challenges of managing aging IT applications and hardware in the enterprise. In part 2 we look at ways to avoid common lifecycle management nightmares from the very start. Three common mistakes that enterprise IT managers make when it comes to lifecycle planning are gaps in design, content, and end-of-life management.

When it comes to designing for lifecycle management, the belief is that selecting a hardware solution that will have a longer lifecycle is expensive to design in. The reality is that today's IT solutions that come as embedded appliances with longer lifecycles are no more expensive than general use compute platforms. And the savings, long term, far outweigh any minor cost savings at the early stages of the design. Leveraging a longer life embedded design allows for a smoother transition to a new IT solution when the business is ready and not when the vendor decides it's time to change.

A second big mistake is focusing just on the IT hardware and software itself while in production. Content management areas like data and processes are just as critical. When a new solution is put into service in the IT enterprise, poor lifecycle management of the data that is stored as well as the methods to manage that data once it's in full production will increase operational cost.

Last is the final resting place for the legacy IT infrastructure. Nobody enjoys planning for that time when the old solution needs to be decommissioned. But proper planning and execution of this phase of the lifecycle can limit business interruption and avoid costly mistakes in data loss and continuity.

So what's the final score?  The lifecycle management work done during the design and launch phases will provide increased bandwidth to plan the end-of-life phase. This strategy will reduce risk and increase revenue.

Jeff Hudgins (News - Alert) is vice president of marketing at Unicom Engineering (www.unicomengineering.com).