Guest View: The rise of IT Specialists
By James de Raeve and Brian Mitsuki
August 15, 2008 —
(Page 1 of 3)
As IT infrastructures have evolved over the last four decades, moving from a mainframe-centric model, to two- and three-tier client server models, and finally to today’s very diverse and complex distributed computing model, so too have the key technical people who sell, build, integrate and manage these IT systems.
Back in the old mainframe days, the glass partitions that separated the team of IT Specialists from the businesspeople reinforced the concept that the IT folks “behind the glass” were isolated and different. Could they only talk in bits and bytes? Could they only speak about “direct access storage device rotation access speeds,” “mean time to failure,” and a host of other IT concepts, but little else from a business perspective? More often than not, the answer to this question was an emphatic “yes.”
During the mainframe era, applications were simpler—most were based on COBOL and accessed by green-screen dumb terminals—and applications did not interact with each other. IT leaders were primarily concerned with technology and technical concepts for themselves rather than whether or not they provided value to the business.
Fast forward to the early 1990s. IT evolved into two- and three-tier client-server models spread out over the IT infrastructure. Local NetWare and Windows servers were distributed among the business units and offices, and the expertise to support these boxes had to become distributed as well. The client-server model introduced greater complexity to computing: distributed applications, data residency spread across platforms and two-phase commit, to name a few. Beginning with client-server models, IT Specialists started becoming more involved in business and business became more involved with IT.
In contrast to the client-server era, today’s IT environment is far more complex, and the business and IT people now must function together as seamlessly as the IT must be integrated with business processes. While this is now self evident from the architecture, solution and infrastructure perspective, it is equally true of the people that make the business and the IT happen.
So who is ultimately responsible for today’s IT environments? The builders, integrators and managers of these highly complex infrastructures are now known as IT Specialists. The IT profession has come a long way from those days when the IT workers were on the other side of the glass, and when business and IT functions were segregated and had little impact on one another. Today’s IT Specialists have to bridge the gap between business functions and departments while maintaining the technical expertise to architect, develop and manage the IT environment.
Related Search Term(s): ITIL, professional development
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