IT Operations more Intelligent as Automation Increases

Enterprises are moving from reactive to proactive IT operations (ITOps) by leveraging intelligent automation to reduce unplanned IT downtime brought on by operational complexity. The need has never been higher for intelligent systems to prevent potential problems through AI-driven tasks such as automated remediation and preventative maintenance. In fact, about 60% of IT operations management contracts leverage some sort of artificial intelligence.

These trends, and others, are covered in our Intelligent ITOps Services 2021–2022 RadarView™ . The report is a comprehensive study of intelligent ITOps services, including top trends, analysis, and a close look at the market’s leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers.

We evaluated 45 service providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, partner ecosystem, and investment and innovations. Of those 45 providers, we recognized 24 that have brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.

The report recognizes service providers in four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, HCL, IBM, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Atos, Cognizant, DXC, LTI, Microland, NTT DATA, and Tech Mahindra
  • Disruptors: Hexaware, Mindtree, Mphasis, Softtek, and Zensar
  • Challengers: CGI, CSS Corp, Coforge, UST, and Virtusa

Figure 1 from the full report illustrates these categories:

Anupam Govil, partner and digital practice lead at Avasant, congratulated the winners noting, “Rising costs and operational complexity are accelerating the adoption of automation in ITOps. Service providers are increasing investments in a self-healing, autonomous enterprise as part of an evolution towards AIOps platforms.”

Some of the findings from the full report include the following:

1. Proprietary provider platforms are driving rapid adoption of intelligent ITOps.
   • About 45%–50% of ITOps contracts leverage service provider proprietary tools and platforms. Hence, about 40% of their intelligent ITOps investments are allocated to asset development including new platforms and solution accelerators, intellectual property, patents, and industry-specific assets.
   • This is leading to rapid industrialization of advanced intelligent automation solutions, including zero-touch/low-touch/self-service solutions, site reliability services, and self-healing platforms.
2. Managing niche IT functions in an as-a-service model is the fastest-growing area.
   • While infrastructure as a service is the most commonly adopted service model, attributing to 41% of the share in intelligent ITOps projects, SaaS stands at 15% and is growing faster with a 58% YOY growth rate.
   • In the past 12 months, niche SaaS models such as workplace as a service, decarbonization as a service, and AIOps as a service have emerged.
3. Progressive firms are transitioning from AIOps to no operations (NoOps).
   • Currently less than 10% of IT operations in an enterprise environment are autonomous. However, this is expected to rise to 30%–40% in the next three to four years as enterprise IT infrastructure evolves with end-to-end infrastructure visibility and seamless management of hybrid and multicloud environments.
   • Enterprises are architecting extreme, autonomous IT infrastructure (NoOps) through investments in hybrid multicloud observability, zero-touch monitoring and resolution, and infrastructure as code.
   • While most companies are still investing in AIOps, progressive firms are looking at NoOps as the final destination.

“IT operations failures are escalating at an alarming rate,” said Chandrika Dutt, research leader at Avasant. “The adoption of AIOps for zero-touch infrastructure management is being fast-tracked, allowing businesses to quickly identify and solve issues in real time.”

The full report also features detailed RadarView profiles of the 24 platform providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting enterprises in their ITOps journeys.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of the Intelligent ITOps Services 2021–2022 RadarView™  (click for pricing).