Often times, a fierce tug-of-war wages between old and new at the cusp of innovation. This holds true in business, in politics, in society — and even in technology. Major departures have us clinging to familiar devils in the hopes of avoiding the unknown.

In IT, those devils take the shape of application requirements, data center management, systems complexity, and operational costs. Traditionally, the role of an enterprise's IT organization has been to bridle these beasts. And for the most part, technology has provided us with the tools and know-how to do so.

However, it's also true that technology itself has been responsible for creating its own variety of six-headed monsters — ones that make running an enterprise increasingly complex and exceedingly expensive.

In a way, IT is protected by its own complexity. "Complicated" is even a successful business model. Some companies profit when customers raise the white flag, indicating defeat by IT complexity.