When told that Gartner is placing great emphasis on the theme of “IT Modernization,” a common first response from many IT professionals is a slightly puzzled expression. The expression can generally be interpreted as “Haven’t we been modernizing IT all along? Isn’t that what IT is all about — replacing old technology with new technology on a never-ending treadmill? What is different now?”

This is an understandable reaction. Most IT organizations seem to be engaged in a never-ending task of IT renewal, similar to painting San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, which legend says takes so long that by the time the crew reaches the far side, it is time to start over again. This never-ending cycle of renewal would not be an issue if it was achieving the goals set for IT by the business: simple, effective solutions delivered at an acceptable cost that can be quickly modified to meet changing business demands. Far from achieving these business objectives, however, common IT practice seems to be getting farther away from these goals. The question we must ask is “Can IT delivery organizations close the gap on business expectations by working harder in the way they have done in the past?” The answer must be a resounding “No” (see “Organize to Modernize: The Role PMOs Can Play in IT Modernization”).

When Gartner analysts talk about IT modernization, what they are referring to is a complete overhaul of the culture of IT with the specific goal of developing a portfolio of processes that will enable IT delivery teams to close the gap on accelerating business demands — all in the face of arguably the greatest shift in IT technology skills that has been seen in the history of computing. This has been a growing challenge for the government and commercial sectors for decades (as discussed in “Government and IT Modernization”). The initial use of IT as automating previously manual process based on the computing architectures of the era was soon overtaken by the need for competitive advantage. After many years of hardening their business processes into handwritten computer systems, organizations are now faced with generational shifts in technology, business pressures and IT skills at a scale never before seen in the computer age, as explored in “Legacy Modernization and Core System Issues Among P&C and Life Insurers.”

So what’s an organization to do when internal pressures become as demanding as external business pressures? IT modernization represents Gartner’s theme for closing the gap between yesterday’s IT implementations and tomorrow’s IT demands (see “Planning for IT Modernization: Start From the Top With APM”). Much has changed since the advent of computer use by governments and businesses in the 1960s. New technologies (explored in “How Multicore Servers Affect Applications and IT Modernization”), new architectures, lower-cost hardware, shifting skill sets and more varied sources of IT from packaged-software vendors and service providers change the landscape for delivering business agility (see “IT Modernization and Server Platform Selection”).

The demands on today’s IT solutions include:

• Increased access to new constituents beyond the enterprise’s walls
• Improved decision making through more-intelligent data mining
• Expansion of content beyond traditional accounting functions
• Responsiveness to the ever-changing dynamics of business and technological possibilities

If the path were easy, every enterprise would have done it by now. Our Special Report brings a wide breadth and depth of knowledge to bear on the myriad of modernization decisions that need to be made. The source of modern applications is no longer the exclusive domain of the internal AD department. Commercial off-the-shelf software developers provide a wide range of modern technological options to delivering business function. External service providers bring a massive investment in infrastructure and skills to the modern AD environment. Access to software without acquiring or installing it is available through the notion of “software as a service” from many providers (discussed in “The Role of SaaS in IT Modernization”).

The complexity of the evolving IT infrastructure and delivery mechanisms demands a greater focus on enterprise architecture than ever before and is explored in “IT Modernization: Build Agile Data Centers While Reducing Expenses.” Creating a modern AD platform with the myriad of technology options available can create significant complexity (see “Governing IT Modernization Efforts”). Unlocking the value of the large volumes of data from legacy data stores is a necessity for using this data for refined and dynamic business decisions (see “IT Modernization: Modernize IT Funding to Modernize IT and Legacy Data Storage”). The wide variety of delivery options also changes the nature of the IT organization and the types of skills necessary to operate in the new world.

Creating a modern AD platform from scratch is hard enough. Getting there from decades of legacy investment is not only technologically challenging, but also culturally difficult. The changing nature of IT has a dramatic psychological impact on the enterprise’s greatest historical investment — its people, as noted in “Impact of Modernization on Application Professionals’ Career Image and Outlook.” Some will make the trip to the world of modern AD. Others will not. For many organizations, the pending retirements of the often-discussed “baby boomer” generation will affect their ability to continue to maintain and evolve the application systems they built. Where will the new human capital come from? Can you build it yourself? Do you need to build the same skills that were important in creating your existing systems? Could you build them even if you did need them? The generational shift in IT skills has become a top issue for many enterprises, and will impact every company during the next decade.

Although the issues are many, a growing ecosystem of hardware/software vendors and service providers are developing solutions to help modernize an organization’s IT infrastructure and applications. The timing of globalized business demands, generational skills shifts, improved infrastructure and a changing IT vendor landscape are all factors affecting an organization’s modernization decisions.

The IT Modernization theme encompasses a wide variety of research touching on many topics related to any enterprise’s or government’s modernization decisions. Architecture decisions, hardware/software platform choices, enterprise packaged-software decisions, organizational planning, skills development, AD governance and many other topics are brought together under this unifying theme (see also “How to Modernize Your Job Scheduling Environment” and “Adopt PPM to Support IT Modernization”).