Escaping legacy IT systems
Today, big multinational companies depend heavily on their information systems. If a company’s internal servers go down for even a few hours, it can mean millions of dollars in lost productivity. Information technology (IT) managers are thus reluctant to make changes that could have unforeseen consequences for network stability; as a result, they often end up saddled with obsolete software and inefficient network designs. At the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Cluster conference from Sept. 26-30, researchers from MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) will unveil what may well be the most sophisticated computer model of a corporate information infrastructure yet built, which could help IT managers predict the effects of changes to their networks. In a study funded by Ford Motor Co., the researchers compared their model’s predictions to data supplied by Ford and found that, on average, its estimates of response times for queries...