08/20/25 | EverOps
Restructuring IT Departments for Market Dominance in 2025 & Beyond
In many high-growth environments, IT operations and software delivery often grow in parallel but not always in sync. What starts as a logical division of responsibilities can quickly become a source of friction. Handoffs take too long, ownership becomes blurred, and priorities start to compete instead of complementing each other.
We have seen this dynamic play out across almost all industries. While ITOps teams focus on stability and reliability, DevOps teams focus on speed and iteration. But both are essential, and without shared context, collaboration, or the proper infrastructure, teams end up working at cross purposes.
The result is slower delivery, more operational risk, and an IT organization that feels reactive instead of strategic.
By breaking down the traditional barriers between IT operations and development teams, companies can achieve:
For CTOs and IT leaders, this integration is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity.
Companies that successfully master the ITOps-DevOps alliance are no longer just competing; they are setting new industry standards, delivering exceptional customer experiences, and driving explosive business growth.
In this article, we’ll explore the key strategies, challenges, and benefits of ITOps and DevOps integration, providing actionable insights for leaders seeking to positively transform the structure of their current organizations.
Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) teams have evolved beyond maintaining systems and are now pivotal in driving innovation throughout their enterprises. This transformation is essential for organizations striving to remain competitive within the shifting demands of technology and customer expectations.
As highlighted at the recent Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference, I&O leaders face increasing pressure to rethink how they acquire, deploy, and manage technology solutions to optimize business outcomes. Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner, emphasized that the rising complexity of solutions and deployment scenarios demands a fresh perspective on skills, roles, and career management within I&O teams.
The message here is clear: ITOps can no longer function in isolation. To meet today’s demands, I&O expertise must be integrated with the agility of DevOps, building a cohesive operational framework that promotes rapid innovation and seamless deployment.
Ultimately, I&O teams must shift from being system caretakers to becoming strategic partners, playing a vital role in driving long-term sustainability and ensuring their organizations navigate economic uncertainties successfully.
The rise of platform engineering practices marks a pivotal shift in how organizations manage their infrastructure. Gartner projects that by 2028, more than 50% of enterprises will leverage industry cloud platforms to drive their business initiatives. This transition represents a significant evolution from viewing cloud technology merely as a disruptor to embracing it as a vital enabler of operational efficiency.
For today’s IT leaders, adopting strategic platform engineering practices is essential for mastering the complexities of hybrid environments. By utilizing cloud capabilities such as elasticity, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), and serverless functions, organizations can achieve faster time-to-market, improved reliability, and greater adaptability.
Moreover, platform teams are often the missing link between ITOps and DevOps. They give developers the tools they need while keeping operations teams happy with the stability and security they require.
The result? Less friction, more automation, and teams that work together instead of around each other.
Although the convergence of these two departments is becoming more imperative, bringing them together is rarely a clean handoff.
We hear from IT leaders all the time: “We have so many tools, nobody knows which one to use for what.” Every team seems to have its favorite monitoring tool, deployment platform, or project management system, and what started as flexibility eventually turns into chaos.
While integration sounds good in theory, in practice, it frequently surfaces a hard truth: There are too many tools, too little alignment, and not enough time to make sense of it all. The good news? There is still a clear path forward, one that aligns tools with the way your teams actually work.
Here’s how to tackle tool consolidation without breaking everything:
When you get this right, something interesting happens. Instead of fighting against your tools, your teams start working with them. The stability that ITOps teams need doesn’t have to compete with the speed that DevOps teams want, and both can finally coexist in a streamlined ecosystem that makes sense.
As the conversation around DevOps evolves, it’s clear that security must be a core consideration, not an afterthought.
A recent Reddit discussion highlighted this urgency, with one of the contributors stating, “Security is 100% the job. I don’t understand anyone who says it’s not. Whether you are working on a cloud service or an air-gapped machine, security is always a consideration with everything I do” further highlighting the critical role security plays in every aspect of DevOps.
However, achieving complete security is a continuous and ongoing effort, particularly in the context of DevSecOps, where security practices are embedded within the DevOps framework. The convergence of development and operations teams with security practices is essential today.
This approach ensures that security becomes an integral part of the development process from the outset, enabling teams to collaborate effectively and align on security objectives. By integrating security with DevOps, organizations can respond swiftly to emerging threats while maintaining the agility required for modern software development.
Let’s explore how to build security into your DevOps workflow from day one, the practical approaches that work, and how to shift your team’s mindset so security becomes everyone’s responsibility instead of just another checkbox.
In modern software engineering, particularly within DevOps, security must be a core component of development and operational processes from the beginning. This approach, often referred to as “shifting left,” essentially means starting with security instead of bolting it on later. When you bake security testing into your CI/CD pipeline, every code commit gets checked for vulnerabilities automatically. No more surprises in production.
By prioritizing security from the start, organizations can:
This proactive approach to security enhances not only the integrity of products but also the resilience of platforms and the efficiency of operations. It allows teams to develop and deploy software faster, with greater confidence in its security.
Let’s face it, you can’t automate your way out of every security challenge. The strongest defense you have is a team that thinks about security as part of their daily work, not something that happens to them.
This means regular training that doesn’t feel like punishment, threat modeling sessions where different teams collaborate on identifying risks, and security metrics that matter. When developers, ops teams, and security folks all speak the same language, that’s where the magic happens.
Tools alone are not enough. Security must also live in the mindset of the team. It shouldn’t belong to a single department or ticketing queue. Every person, from developers to operations staff, who touches infrastructure or code has a role to play in protecting it.
This cultural shift involves ongoing training and awareness programs, such as regular workshops or simulated security incidents. By equipping all staff with the knowledge and tools to make security-conscious decisions, companies can promote a safer environment where security is viewed as everyone’s responsibility.
By embedding security into DevOps practices, businesses not only protect their assets but also streamline their development process. In this case, security becomes an enabler of innovation rather than a bottleneck, allowing for the delivery of robust, secure solutions that meet the demands of business stakeholders. That way, resilience becomes part of the design, not an afterthought.
In the integration of ITOps and DevOps, security serves as a crucial unifying factor. Think about it this way: operations teams want stable, reliable systems, and development teams want to ship features quickly. Security gives both teams a shared goal they can rally around.
When you make security everyone’s responsibility, something shifts. Instead of operations teams worrying that developers are moving too fast, and developers feeling like ops is slowing them down, both teams start working together to build systems that are both agile and secure.
Key benefits of integrated security practices include:
This collaborative security approach breaks down the traditional silos between teams. Instead of having separate priorities that compete with each other, ITOps and DevOps teams find themselves working toward the same outcomes: systems that are both fast and secure, reliable and innovative.
To successfully integrate ITOps and DevOps, organizations should adopt a set of best practices that promote collaboration, enhance communication, and streamline processes. In the following sections, we will explore these essential practices that drive effective collaboration and contribute to achieving the strategic objectives of a business.
The foundation of effective collaboration lies in establishing shared objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that align with overarching business goals. When both ITOps and DevOps teams work towards the same outcomes, silos naturally begin to break down. This alignment ensures that stability and agility are given equal importance, creating a balanced approach to IT service delivery.
CIOs and IT leaders should consider facilitating regular cross-functional planning sessions where both teams contribute to setting priorities and defining success metrics. These shared KPIs should encompass both operational stability (e.g., system uptime, mean time to recovery) and development velocity (e.g., deployment frequency, lead time for changes).
A familiar toolchain that supports both operational stability and development velocity is crucial for seamless collaboration. By standardizing on a shared set of tools, organizations can reduce friction in the handoff between development and operations, streamline workflows, and improve overall efficiency.
Consider implementing a unified platform that integrates:
– Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools
– Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines
– Monitoring and observability solutions
– Incident management systems
– Collaboration and communication tools
This shared toolset facilitates better communication and understanding between teams, as everyone speaks the same technical language. It also enables faster problem resolution and promotes a more holistic view of the entire application lifecycle.
Forming cross-functional teams that include members from both ITOps and DevOps can be a powerful tool for facilitating collaboration. These teams bring diverse perspectives to problem-solving, combining the stability focus of ITOps with the agility emphasis of DevOps.
Consider investing in cross-training programs that allow team members to develop skills across both domains. This not only enhances individual capabilities but also promotes empathy and understanding between teams.
Integrating ITOps and DevOps is a proven strategy that high-performing companies have used to scale faster, operate more reliably, and innovate with confidence. This synergization has led to remarkable transformations across various industries. By examining some of these real-world case studies, other enterprises can gain valuable insights into the practical applications and benefits of this synergistic approach.
Capital One is a clear example of how aligning ITOps and DevOps can transform software delivery. Their engineering teams built out fully automated pipelines using tools like Jenkins, where every code change triggered a sequence of automated tests, including unit tests, integration checks, and security scans, before deployment. No manual handoffs. No waiting for approvals.
The result was a seamless, reliable delivery process that allowed teams to ship updates without downtime. That meant faster releases, stronger code quality, and a better experience for both customers and engineers.
More importantly, the shift to a standardized pipeline helped bridge the gap between development and operations. Automation gave both teams a standard process to rally around, streamlining collaboration and improving security without slowing down speed.
Capital One’s story shows what is possible when teams stop treating ITOps and DevOps as separate tracks and start building delivery systems that support both.
After the widely known outage in 2008, Netflix made a bold move. They shifted their entire infrastructure to the cloud, laying the foundation for a more flexible and resilient architecture.
This decision was more than a technical migration, and it marked the beginning of a cultural shift toward DevOps principles, continuous delivery, and a deep commitment to automation. By using Infrastructure as a Service, Netflix gave teams the ability to continuously test, deploy, and scale without depending on physical servers or long lead times.
The impact was enormous. From 2007 to 2015, the company grew its subscriber base eight times over and increased streaming hours by a factor of one thousand. Much of this scale was possible because Netflix invested early in systems that were built to adapt, recover, and grow.
Their now-famous Chaos Engineering approach turned failure into a design requirement. Instead of avoiding risk, they built systems that could handle it.
Netflix’s evolution is a blueprint for organizations looking to combine ITOps, DevOps, and cloud technologies into a single, resilient operating model. It shows how investing in adaptability can unlock long-term growth.
ITOps and DevOps integration is now the difference between companies that adapt quickly and those that get left behind. Capital One ships without fear, Netflix scales to millions of users without breaking, and they are a prime example of teams that learned to work together instead of around each other.
The takeaways here are clear:
When you get these fundamentals right, everything else becomes easier. Your teams move faster, your systems become more reliable, and your customers notice the difference.
For IT leaders, the question isn’t whether to integrate ITOps and DevOps. It’s how quickly you can make it happen. While your competitors are still debating whether to break down silos, you could be building the foundation for the next phase of your company’s growth.
At EverOps, we’ve seen what happens when ITOps and DevOps teams work together instead of around each other. We embed directly with your teams to eliminate the friction that’s slowing you down. Less context switching, fewer bottlenecks, more time building things that matter.
The result? Your teams move faster, your systems get more reliable, and your organization gains the competitive edge that comes from having IT that accelerates business goals instead of just supporting them.
Ready to turn your IT organization into a growth driver? Let’s talk about how we can help you get there! Contact us today.
ITOps focuses on maintaining and managing the infrastructure, ensuring systems are up and running smoothly. DevOps, on the other hand, is centered around accelerating software development through collaboration, automation, and continuous delivery. When integrated, these teams can collaborate to optimize both system performance and software release speed, resulting in enhanced operational efficiency and innovation.
Collaboration between ITOps and DevOps is crucial because it helps eliminate silos, streamline operations, and enhance productivity. When both teams work in unison, organizations benefit from faster software delivery, more resilient infrastructure, and a more agile response to business needs. This collaboration drives innovation and ensures organizations stay competitive in the digital economy.
The primary benefits include improved efficiency, faster time-to-market, enhanced system reliability, and reduced downtime. By integrating these teams, organizations can deliver higher-quality products and services while maintaining a stable and scalable infrastructure. This approach enables a continuous feedback loop, making it easier to identify and address issues before they escalate.
Cloud technology provides the flexibility and scalability needed for both ITOps and DevOps to thrive. It allows organizations to automate infrastructure provisioning, implement continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, and monitor performance in real-time. By leveraging cloud services, both teams can focus on optimizing processes and driving innovation without being bogged down by hardware limitations.
Common challenges include resistance to change, cultural differences between teams, and the complexity of aligning tools and processes. Overcoming these hurdles requires strong leadership, a focus on shared goals, and the implementation of robust communication strategies. Additionally, organizations must invest in the right tools and training to support the seamless integration of these functions.
EverOps specializes in optimizing both ITOps and DevOps through a tailored approach that embeds our experts directly into your team. We help streamline your operations, eliminate inefficiencies, and implement best practices across infrastructure management, continuous delivery, and observability. Our solutions ensure that your IT Operations (ITOps) and Development Operations (DevOps) teams work together effectively, driving increased productivity and innovation.
The EverOps TechPod approach involves embedding a team of specialized experts within your organization to provide ongoing support and optimization for your infrastructure and operations. This approach ensures your teams have access to the expertise needed to enhance performance, accelerate software delivery, and manage cloud infrastructure efficiently, all while reducing the cognitive load on your team.
Absolutely. EverOps not only helps optimize your cloud infrastructure but also ensures your teams are working efficiently by reducing overhead and minimizing unnecessary costs. Our services include cloud cost optimization, architecture refinement, and the implementation of industry best practices to help you achieve both financial savings and operational efficiency.
If your organization is experiencing bottlenecks in software delivery, inefficiencies in infrastructure management, or struggles with maintaining a balance between innovation and operational stability, EverOps can help. Our experts will assess your current processes, identify areas for improvement, and implement solutions that enhance both productivity and performance.