Change is the new normal

Last week SUSE were at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference in London’s historic Docklands. In addition to exhibiting, talking about how SUSE can make open source solutions easier and giving out hundreds of cuddly chameleons to eager attendees, my colleague Imogen Ashcroft and I gave a presentation that looked at the changing role of internal IT in this cloudy world that we’re living in. It’s fair to say that no matter what your role is, the rapid changes that are occurring within IT will impact the work that you do. That was very apparent when you looked around at the other exhibitors at the conference. Many of the traditional hardware or networking vendors that you might expect to see at this event either were not there, or had changed their pitch substantially. Instead, there was much talk about automation, multi-cloud management and AIOps – really interesting and very exciting topics, indeed!

Apart from getting to meet friendly exhibitors like SUSE, most people come to Gartner events to hear the latest research and advice from their well-respected team of analysts, and there was plenty of that to be had.

The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again

Neil Rickard introduced the event at the opening keynote, using this well-known quote from Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau. He pointed out that Infrastructure and Operations (or I&O as they are more frequently referred to) leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to change the role of I&O from just keeping the lights on to being an agent enabling rapid change within their organisations. The overall theme of Reimagine, Revitalise and Reenergise was fleshed out further in the following keynotes.

This message was echoed and expanded upon in many of the other presentations given at the event – by analysts and exhibitors alike. David Capuccio stressed that I&O should become a preferred supplier to the business, to prevent the re-emergence of Shadow IT. Dennis Smith advised that I&O should start driving ideas and bringing innovation to the table to drive desirable business outcomes, enhance the quality of services and to build customer intimacy. All themes that may not have been familiar to (or even comfortable for) I&O teams in the past, but in this new world essential for their ongoing success and growth.

The future of I&O is bright

Regardless of your role, with so much change and so many opportunities presented to you, it’s a great time to be working in IT. The chance to learn and deploy new technologies, to be at the cutting edge if you so choose, and to expand your horizons into different roles is something to be grabbed with both hands. Milind Govekar pointed out in his keynote that careers are no longer linear – roles are changing, with new positions being created all the time.

Whatever direction your business is going, open source technologies like Ceph, Kubernetes, Cloud Foundry and Linux could help your company to simplify and modernise your operations, and to innovate faster to give you a competitive edge. To get the best out of these technologies, finding a trusted partner is essential. Speak to SUSE to find out how our open source products and services can help you to reimagine, revitalise and reenergise your IT.