JumpCloud Perspectives on Global IT Outage
2024年7月25日 - 2:14AM
JumpCloud Inc. today offered perspectives on the global IT outage.
The following is the full blog post from the company’s CEO and
co-founder Rajat Bhargava.
When we look back – in six months, 12 months, or even several
years – at the global IT outage that severely disrupted major
industries around the world, I don't think that it will be
hyperbole to say that July's global outage is a watershed moment
for IT. Just as the SolarWinds breach was security's watershed
moment, this will end up being IT's. And, just like with security's
wake-up call, things will get better, we will build more resilient
systems, and teams will think differently. We have to. The world is
more reliant on technology and more interconnected than ever–there
isn't another option.
This note is not about casting blame or pushing products. It’s
about realizing the depth of criticality and impact of IT and
security in every organization around the world. CrowdStrike and
Microsoft are excellent companies, run by amazingly talented
people. The truth is that these events can and do happen. But
July’s events are at a radically different scale. JumpCloud, too,
has had its past issues and our customers and partners have been
amazing supporters as we have worked to resolve and correct
defects. When critical IT and security infrastructure and tooling
hiccup, the effects are dramatic. It’s the responsibility we bear
every day.
We will hear from pundits and analysts that it is too early to
make changes or deviate strategies or not rely on key partners.
That all may be true, but there is also another school of
thought–never waste a crisis. This is absolutely the time to set
the right (perhaps entirely new) course for an organization. CEOs
and Senior Leadership Teams (and at this point, even global leaders
and heads of state) are acutely aware of the impact IT has on their
organizations. As IT professionals, we must revise our strategies
around IT systems and update our playbooks–playbooks that will take
our organizations to the next level, where these types of events
will be painful, but not catastrophic.
In line with this proactive mindset, my co-founder Greg Keller
and I spent the better part of the last few days in deep discussion
with our teams on this topic. First, every team member at JumpCloud
is dedicated to supporting our customers. We have been called by
many customers and partners for assistance, and our answer is
always yes. We are eager to help and see how our platform can aid
in mitigations and recovery steps.
Second, there are immediate steps that organizations should take
once they've fully brought all of their systems online.
- Give IT and Security seats at the C-suite
table. IT and security are two of the most critical teams
in an organization. They need to be elevated to C-suite functions
if they aren’t already. Now is the time to ensure that every
organization is focused on digital experience, security, and
reliability. No organization can run without those now. Elevate
these roles to have a real seat at the decision-making table.
- Question homogeneous infrastructure and being
Microsoft/Google/AWS/[fill in a company name] "shops". We
have gotten so used to talking about our “allegiances” in this way.
Many IT professionals align themselves with these “platforms” and
that alignment becomes part of their identity. If this event
doesn't prove monocultures fail, nothing will. Each one of these
large organizations should be opening up their platforms and
inviting their customers to work with their competitors. If your
vendors won't do that for you, then you should either find a new
vendor or work on creating internal mechanisms to make sure you
have those options. We cannot afford to have governments fail,
airlines grounded, hospitals shut down, and emergency services
unresponsive.
- Create redundancy through mixed-platform
environments–now! Since the beginning of IT, our jobs have
been to systematize, regiment, and automate services. We wanted
everything the same because it was easier to manage and monitor. It
was easier for us to hire people and easier for them to learn and
excel. The day when it would eventually backfire was inevitable.
With so much focus on having single platforms, single vendors,
single OSs, etc. for all of the many good reasons, we just created
the perfect storm for organizational collapse. Yes, no doubt,
having a mixed-platform environment will initially cost more in IT
outlays and people expenses. But the return over time – and the
added resilience, uptime, and security – will cover those expenses.
If you want to run a digital infrastructure now, a mixed-platform
environment is about the only way to do it. M365 needs to have
Google Workspace as a backup that can be turned on instantly. AWS
will need GCP for a multi-cloud, redundant solution. Every group in
the organization should have a mixture of device types. Data should
be stored in multiple places. As soon as your organization is
stable, this should be the top priority, or as we say in tech, P0,
and nothing comes before it.
So where do businesses go from here? It all starts with senior
leadership getting involved and understanding the risks of being
dependent on homogeneous IT architectures. These leaders must come
to realize that single points of failure in people, in process and,
in this case, technology, can have a catastrophic impact when there
is no redundancy baked into their plans. We have witnessed how
severe the consequences are due to the reliance on single forms of
technology, like an operating system, which in a matter of hours
brought critical infrastructure, travel, and governments to their
knees. Technology is not foolproof and these types of incidents can
happen to any vendor. If we switch the perspective of this
incident, however, from “accident" to “cyberattack", will that be
the appropriate wake-up call for leaders to rethink and adjust
their plans? We cannot take that risk and wait for that to
occur.
About JumpCloudJumpCloud® delivers a unified
open directory platform that makes it easy to securely manage
identities, devices, and access across your organization. With
JumpCloud, IT teams and MSPs enable users to work securely from
anywhere and manage their Windows, Apple, Linux, and Android
devices from a single platform. JumpCloud is IT Simplified.
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