2022 IT Operations Trends: Will IT See a Role Change?

Last year saw AIOps become increasingly important, as did CloudOps, FinOps and a handful of other "Ops." And there are no signs that momentum for those IT operations trends will slow down in 2022.

In fact, analyst firm Omdia has forecast that the AIOps market will generate $2.3 billion globally by 2024, far surpassing the $913 million it was worth in 2020. At the Interop Digital IT Automation virtual event last June, Roy Illsley, chief analyst at Omdia, said because organizations have been resource-constrained during the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to automate with AI has become increasingly important.

In this Uptime with ITPro Today video, Illsley discusses what he believes will be the top IT operations trends in 2022. "We are going to start to see the breakdown of the silos and we are going to start to see the introduction of technologies like AIOps, more DevOps, DevSecOps, CloudOps, FinOps — all these Ops terms," he said. "What they're meaning is we're changing what and how IT operations relates to the business. We're changing what and how IT operations do."

5 IT Operations Trends to Watch in 2022

In this video, Illsley discusses the following five IT operations trends to expect in 2022:

Related:Top 10 Tech Buzzwords for IT Operations Teams in 2022

"Cloud-native is definitely on the rise; virtual machines are still really important," Illsley said. "They are not going to go away." Gartner, in fact, estimates cloud-native platforms will account for 95% of new digital initiatives by 2025.

Regarding edge computing, Illsley said it is "something that has been talked about and talked about and will eventually become a key part of most organizations' strategy."

Environmental sustainability and the IT skills shortage will be top of mind for organizations in 2022, said Illsley, who laid out how the Glasgow Climate Pact reached at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow last year will drive change in operations, as well how organizations must deal with the IT skills shortage.

Finally, Illsley wonders whether 2022 will be the year that IT changes its role and purpose — and maybe its nomenclature. "2022 is going to see the start of transformation and maybe, just maybe, we might change the name of IT to be digital services and solutions, which more reflects what you actually do," he said.

Related:IT Operations Engineer Salary: What to Expect, and How to Earn More