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What is ServiceOps? A Research-Based Look at Why It's on the Rise

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

A working definition: ServiceOps is a technology-enabled approach to unifying IT service and IT operations management for excellence in delivery of digital business services.

Although the two teams have different charters and skillsets, IT service and IT operations are inextricable. There is no service without effective IT operations.

Reducing friction caused by overlap, gaps, conflicting organizational goals, and disjointed processes, ServiceOps is all about IT service to the business. It is people-centric, technology-enabled, and C-level endorsed. It's also on the rise.

Recent EMA field research found that ServiceOps is either an active effort or a formal initiative in 78% of the organizations represented by a global panel of 400+ IT leaders. It is relatively early but gaining momentum across industries and organizations of all sizes globally.

Benefiting IT service and operations equally, ServiceOps tends to be grassroots in origin, but is well supported and funded at the C-level. Both grassroots adoption and C-level support stem from the fact that ServiceOps directly addresses many of the highest-priority IT objectives and challenges, especially IT employee productivity, reduction in outage frequency/duration/impact, improved service, user experience, and cost-cutting.

ServiceOps runs on automation and AI/ML technology tracks already laid down in cross-functional workflows. Most of all, ServiceOps makes sense to the people doing the work because it is practical and slashes wasted time on both sides.

When EMA asked representatives from its global panel of ServiceOps leaders to rate its organizational impact, the results were almost universally positive.

What Impact Has ServiceOps Had on Your Organization?


In case anyone is wondering, participants were offered numerous less-than-positive responses. They don't show up on this chart because negative responses were simply not chosen.

ServiceOps has no downside. It uses technology that is already in place and well understood so additional investment is no impediment to adoption. Results are not only immediate, but important. Practitioners answered the question, "What are the results when service and operations are effectively unified (ServiceOps)?" with a virtual tie for first place:

■ Faster time to find and fix problems

■ Higher productivity and less wasted time

What organization doesn't want these results?

They are logical outcomes of ServiceOps, which turns out to be a codeword for effective collaboration and effortless cooperation.

A word about the name … there is no magic to the phrase "ServiceOps." It's not a product or a technology. It's not even a methodology. It's a common-sense use of existing resources toward a common goal, so the name doesn't matter. However, EMA anticipates that the name will become commonplace and well recognized because it is simple, and it accurately conveys its meaning in the same way that DevOps does for its sphere of function.

So, why does ServiceOps matter now?

■ It's happening now — either formally or informally

■ Its benefits can be amplified with organizational support and funding

■ Recognizing the trends and opportunities makes it possible to harness the momentum and maximize results

■ A chance to make a difference without disruption or tons of additional investment

■ The competition is moving forward

Details of this research and its findings are covered in a vendor-free webinar on April 4:Automation, AI, and the Rise of ServiceOps

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

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As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

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IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

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2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

What is ServiceOps? A Research-Based Look at Why It's on the Rise

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

A working definition: ServiceOps is a technology-enabled approach to unifying IT service and IT operations management for excellence in delivery of digital business services.

Although the two teams have different charters and skillsets, IT service and IT operations are inextricable. There is no service without effective IT operations.

Reducing friction caused by overlap, gaps, conflicting organizational goals, and disjointed processes, ServiceOps is all about IT service to the business. It is people-centric, technology-enabled, and C-level endorsed. It's also on the rise.

Recent EMA field research found that ServiceOps is either an active effort or a formal initiative in 78% of the organizations represented by a global panel of 400+ IT leaders. It is relatively early but gaining momentum across industries and organizations of all sizes globally.

Benefiting IT service and operations equally, ServiceOps tends to be grassroots in origin, but is well supported and funded at the C-level. Both grassroots adoption and C-level support stem from the fact that ServiceOps directly addresses many of the highest-priority IT objectives and challenges, especially IT employee productivity, reduction in outage frequency/duration/impact, improved service, user experience, and cost-cutting.

ServiceOps runs on automation and AI/ML technology tracks already laid down in cross-functional workflows. Most of all, ServiceOps makes sense to the people doing the work because it is practical and slashes wasted time on both sides.

When EMA asked representatives from its global panel of ServiceOps leaders to rate its organizational impact, the results were almost universally positive.

What Impact Has ServiceOps Had on Your Organization?


In case anyone is wondering, participants were offered numerous less-than-positive responses. They don't show up on this chart because negative responses were simply not chosen.

ServiceOps has no downside. It uses technology that is already in place and well understood so additional investment is no impediment to adoption. Results are not only immediate, but important. Practitioners answered the question, "What are the results when service and operations are effectively unified (ServiceOps)?" with a virtual tie for first place:

■ Faster time to find and fix problems

■ Higher productivity and less wasted time

What organization doesn't want these results?

They are logical outcomes of ServiceOps, which turns out to be a codeword for effective collaboration and effortless cooperation.

A word about the name … there is no magic to the phrase "ServiceOps." It's not a product or a technology. It's not even a methodology. It's a common-sense use of existing resources toward a common goal, so the name doesn't matter. However, EMA anticipates that the name will become commonplace and well recognized because it is simple, and it accurately conveys its meaning in the same way that DevOps does for its sphere of function.

So, why does ServiceOps matter now?

■ It's happening now — either formally or informally

■ Its benefits can be amplified with organizational support and funding

■ Recognizing the trends and opportunities makes it possible to harness the momentum and maximize results

■ A chance to make a difference without disruption or tons of additional investment

■ The competition is moving forward

Details of this research and its findings are covered in a vendor-free webinar on April 4:Automation, AI, and the Rise of ServiceOps

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...