/ˌaɪ.ti ˌɒp.əˈreɪ.ʃənz/
noun — "keeping all your servers alive and pretending everything’s under control."
IT Operations refers to the management and maintenance of an organization’s information technology infrastructure, including servers, networks, applications, and services. Its goal is to ensure continuous availability, performance, and reliability while supporting business processes and end-users.
Technically, IT Operations involves:
- System administration — configuring, patching, and maintaining servers and devices.
- Network management — monitoring and optimizing connectivity, bandwidth, and security.
- Application operations — deploying, monitoring, and troubleshooting software systems.
- Monitoring and alerting — detecting issues proactively with Monitoring and Alerting tools.
Examples of IT Operations include:
- Ensuring uptime and performance of cloud infrastructure for a SaaS platform.
- Managing backup schedules and disaster recovery procedures.
- Coordinating incident response and troubleshooting system failures.
Conceptually, IT Operations is the heartbeat of enterprise technology—it keeps the digital systems running smoothly and reliably, often unnoticed until something breaks.
In practice, IT Operations works closely with Network Monitoring, Logging, Event Management, and Audit Trail to maintain operational visibility and ensure business continuity.
See Monitoring, Alerting, Network Monitoring, Event Management, Logging.