If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that a pandemic is the mother of invention. This is nowhere more evident than in higher education. To ensure the seamless delivery of quality learning, colleges and universities have rushed to add or upgrade their IT, edtech, and monitoring tools.
But this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Too many tools—many of them operating in silos—can be cumbersome for students and educators to use and time-consuming for IT teams to support. They also waste funds, introduce overlap and inefficiencies, and can negatively impact system effectiveness and–perhaps most importantly–the user experience.
As higher education institutions forge ahead with their digital transformation initiatives, continued tool sprawl seems inevitable. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here are three things IT pros and business leaders must consider before falling into the trap of adding more applications or monitoring components to their IT systems.
1. Be strategic about commissioning new applications
Colleges and universities depend on edtech solutions for classroom instruction, distance learning, back-office operations, and more. Given the shifting dynamics of the past two years, it can be tempting to invest in the latest shiny new solution. But instead of rushing to commission more apps, institutions must first determine how educators and students use these tools and if they’re having an impact on outcomes.
The best way to do this is to conduct periodic assessments of the application environment and ask a few basic questions. How critical is the application to daily operations? Does it align with the school’s mission? What data does it house? Does the data flow between systems? Is there tool overlap? Is it maintenance-intensive?
With these insights, CIOs and business leaders can have meaningful conversations about consolidating, retiring, replacing, upgrading, or commissioning new edtech based on what’s best for students, faculty, and the mission. For instance, instead of simply adding more apps, institutions should consider interoperable ones or ones with a common platform.
2. Be mindful of IT infrastructure limitations
Tool sprawl isn’t just costly and inefficient; it puts pressure on the entire IT infrastructure.
Many institutions assume their networks can handle these changes. But newer digital learning and value delivery modes can strain network resources and create performance issues and security vulnerabilities that jeopardize day-to-day operations and student outcomes.
As edtech becomes more critical, CIOs and IT leaders must prioritize efforts to right size and optimize their post-pandemic infrastructure. To accommodate new software and hardware loads, weak points in the infrastructure should be identified and mitigated. Single-pane-of-glass monitoring tools are ideal for this because, unlike tools that work independently, they give network administrators a consolidated view of network operations across their complex and sprawling infrastructure. With a seamless foundation of accurate and actionable monitoring data, they can proactively deal with issues before they impact learning and day-to-day operations.
3. Reduce monitoring overload
While monitoring is essential for IT pros to ensure the tools and networks used by students, educators, and faculty are running at optimal performance, it can be tempting to monitor everything.
A report by Enterprise Management Associates found nearly 25 percent of large organizations have eight or more network performance monitoring tools installed, with some using as many as 25 of these tools in different environments.
But too much monitoring creates headaches for IT administrators. Stove-piped dashboards, a sea of alerts, and conflicting data can make it hard to identify real issues. These tools also consume bandwidth and disrupt the resources needed for learning. It all adds up to a costly and inefficient way to monitor any environment.
Smart decisions need to be made, but what does an ideal monitoring infrastructure look like?
To make the right choices about monitoring systems, IT leaders must understand who their end customer is. Whether they’re an operations manager, project manager, or cabinet or executive committee member, each stakeholder will have starkly different monitoring needs. Decision-makers must also consider what insights are required to keep operations running smoothly, without drowning in alerts and data.
Remember, monitoring informs operational decisions based on data collected. Monitoring drives decision-making, so consider investing in a comprehensive, consolidated monitoring tool that neatly aggregates preferred metrics—rather than implementing a broad range of disorganized tools.
A step back now will pay dividends in the future
The pandemic pushed higher education institutions into a technology spending spree; the challenge now is to revisit and reassess those investments with an eye on performance, efficiencies, and minimal disruption. This will reduce tool sprawl and ensure budgets are aligned where they’re needed most—supporting a sustainable learning environment that enhances the student experience, boosts enrollment, and lays a digital foundation for the future.
Brandon Shopp is VP of Product Strategy for SolarWinds.
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