"Infrastructure and Operations" appears to be a recognised market segment these days. It is a useful descriptive term, since it covers the main aspects of the IT Production role:
- Infrastructure - looking after the equipment, hardware, software, networking and other technical stuff which modern IT needs to have in order to run day-to-day
- Operations - the processes and behaviours required to look after the "stuff" (the Infrastructure).
However, I personally prefer the term "IT Production", for a number of reasons. In my view, it ...
- Is simpler and easier to remember
- Highlights a logical contrast between "Development" and "Production".
- Implies a single organisational structure dedicated to a single purpose.
- Defines a clearly recognisable marketplace for tools and services.
- Recognises the importance of the "after go-live" part of IT, as a discipline in it's own right.
The last point is the most important: Whilst IT Development enable a business to gain competitive advantage by using technology, it is the IT Production side which actually ensures that the competitive advantage is realised.
One of the areas we are speaking to Gartner about at the moment is the importance of terminology, and the use of IT Production as the recognisable term for what we work in.
Names do mean something. They confer expectations, and status. And IT Production needs to receive the status which it deserves.
Which, of course, means that we have to start delivering to a higher set of expectations.
