Is Your IT Stack Suffering from 'Enshittification'? Why Tool Sprawl is Killing Response Times

If you’ve read the latest tech headlines, you might have caught The Register discussing Google’s recent pivot toward what they call “AI enshittification”—the idea that platforms are aggressively layering on complexity and algorithmic junk in ways that degrade the actual user experience. While the article focuses on the consumer web, as a Senior IT Consultant, I see the exact same trend happening in the infrastructure management space.

We are seeing the “enshittification” of the IT stack. Vendors are bolting on shiny AI features and bloated dashboards while the core plumbing—the ability to simply see a problem and fix it fast—has never been more fractured. IT managers and MSP technicians are drowning in a sea of disconnected tools. You have one platform for monitoring, another for remote control, a third for ticketing, and a fourth for patching.

The result isn’t just annoyance; it’s operational rot. You spend more time context-switching between tabs than you do resolving issues. Users are waiting longer for fixes, and your talented technicians are burning out because they have to wrestle four different UIs just to restart a single print service.

The Problem in Depth: The High Cost of Siloed Operations

The current market standard for IT management is fundamentally broken due to siloed architecture. Most MSPs and internal IT departments rely on a “best-of-breed” approach that has effectively become a “worst-of-headache” strategy.

Consider a common scenario: A critical Windows Server goes offline at 2 AM.

1. The Monitor (e.g., SolarWinds, Zabbix) fires an alert to your phone.
2. You wake up, log into the VPN, and open the RMM tool (e.g., Datto, NinjaOne) to check the device status.
3. The RMM shows the agent is offline. You need to open your Helpdesk (e.g., ConnectWise, Zendesk) to log the incident for SLA compliance.
4. To actually fix the server, you might need a separate remote access tool or a third-party console.

In this fragmented workflow, the “time to remediation” isn’t just the time it takes to run a script. It’s the 15 minutes of fumbling through password managers and loading disparate web consoles. Legacy tooling wasn't built to talk to each other; they were built to protect their own ecosystems. This lack of integration creates blind spots. Your RMM might have run a script, but your monitoring tool doesn't know it happened. Your helpdesk ticket remains open because the closure wasn't synced.

The real-world impact is brutal:

• Downtime Length: A 5-minute fix becomes a 45-minute outage due to access latency.
• SLA Misses: You fail to meet contractual recovery time objectives (RTOs) not because you lack skill, but because your tools slowed you down.
• Staff Morale: Top-tier engineers leave because they are tired of being data-entry clerks, copying and pasting error logs between three different windows.

How AlertMonitor Solves This: Unified RMM and Monitoring

AlertMonitor takes a stand against this platform decay by unifying the stack. We don't just offer an RMM and a monitoring tool that sit next to each other; we integrate them at the data layer.

When an alert fires in AlertMonitor, you don't need to switch tabs. You can immediately initiate a remote session, execute a remediation script, or push a patch directly from the alert timeline.

The Workflow Difference:

• The Old Way: Alert received -> Log into Helpdesk -> Create Ticket -> Log into RMM -> Find Device -> Run Script -> Update Ticket manually.
• The AlertMonitor Way: Alert received -> Click ‘Remote Fix’ on the alert -> Run Script -> Ticket auto-updates with script output.

By feeding script results directly back into the monitoring timeline, automated remediations and manual technician actions are visible in one place. This contextual awareness dramatically reduces the time between alert and resolution. You aren't just reacting; you are managing the environment with complete visibility.

Practical Steps: Streamlining Your Remote Management

To fight back against tool sprawl, you need to consolidate your workflow. With AlertMonitor, you can centralize your script execution and device management immediately. Here are two practical examples of how to use our integrated RMM capabilities to resolve common issues without leaving the console.

1. Automated Service Recovery (Windows)

Instead of RDPing into a server to bounce a hung service, use this PowerShell script directly within the AlertMonitor RMM interface to check the status and restart the Windows Update Service if necessary.

$ServiceName = "wuauserv"
$Service = Get-Service -Name $ServiceName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

if ($Service.Status -ne 'Running') {
    Write-Output "Service $ServiceName is $($Service.Status). Attempting to start..."
    try {
        Start-Service -Name $ServiceName -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Output "Success: $ServiceName started."
    }
    catch {
        Write-Output "Error: Failed to start $ServiceName. $_"
    }
}
else {
    Write-Output "Service $ServiceName is already running."
}

2. Linux Disk Cleanup and Check

For your Linux endpoints, you can run this Bash snippet via AlertMonitor to check disk usage on the primary partition and clear out old logs if usage is critical.

# Check disk usage of the root partition
DISK_USAGE=$(df / | awk 'NR==2 {print $5}' | sed 's/%//')

if [ "$DISK_USAGE" -gt 80 ]; then
  echo "Warning: Disk usage is at ${DISK_USAGE}%. Cleaning old logs..."
  # Example: truncate journal logs older than 2 days
  journalctl --vacuum-time=2d
  echo "Cleanup complete."
else
  echo "Disk usage is ${DISK_USAGE}%. No action needed."
fi

Stop letting a disjointed stack slow down your team. By consolidating your monitoring and RMM, you remove the friction that leads to outages and burnout.

Related Resources

AlertMonitor RMM & Remote Management AlertMonitor Platform Overview Book a Demo RMM & Remote Management Resources