This document provides an overview of the role of an IT Operations Director. It describes their typical responsibilities like managing IT infrastructure, keeping systems running 24/7, and ensuring high availability. It discusses who they report to and manage, their typical background, objectives, and challenges like capacity planning. It also includes a glossary to help understand common tech terms from the perspective of an Ops Director, like data centers, firewalls, and service level agreements.

1. Part of a series taking a closer look at
enterprise IT
THE (IT) OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

2. SOMETIMES IT FEELS
LIKETHE ONLY ONE
MARKETERSWANT
TOTALKTO ISTHE
CIO.

3. BUTTHERE’S A
WHOLE LOT MORETO
ENTERPRISE IT.

4. INTRODUCINGTHE
(IT) OPERATIONS
DIRECTOR…

5. CONTENTS
What might my objectives look like?

6. WHAT ELSE MIGHT I BE CALLED?
There’s a lack of consistency in naming for this job function. But
some key words do crop up repeatedly:
Operations Director
Head of Service Delivery / Service Delivery Director
Group Operations Director (larger organisations)
IT Operations
Head of IT Infrastructure
Head ofTechnology Services

7. WHO AM I?WHAT DO I DO?
I’m responsible for:
• All IT infrastructure (data centres, network, desktop)
• Relationships with outsourcers if we use their Infrastructure
Service.
• I report to the CIO and look after the IT “plumbing”.
• I may be the person that people take for granted.To them,
IT capability is just there like water when you turn on the
tap.
• I like automation and I was an early exponent of
outsourcing.

8. WHO AM I?WHAT DO I DO?
I typically:
• Run operations and manage the IT infrastructure
• Keep the ‘lights on’ 24/7, from desktops to mainframes
• Manage the availability of ‘the plumbing’ to levels > 99.95%
• Ensure the infrastructure is relatively up to date and maintainable
• Manage 3rd parties that I am dependent upon e.g. IBM or HP plus various
other outsourcers.
• Probably take responsibility for the sound running of the Help Desk
• Am responsible for hardware security
• Do all this with a tiny number of people.

9. TYPICAL BACKGROUND
Background and characteristics include:
• I probably came up through IT Ops (data centre, network ops,
desktop).
• I might have been asked to take this ‘sideways’ management move
as part of a longer term development.
• I may play a more strategic role in businesses such as Retail, or those
with large IT dependent sales forces (Life and Pensions), Banking,
Manufacturing.
• I normally have a good feel for customer service issues.

10. WHO IS MY BOSS ANDWHO DO I MANAGE?
IT Strategy
and
Architecture
Business
Transformation
Application
Development
Operations
Governance
and Risk
CIO
Data Centre
Manager
Network
Manager
Desktop
Manager
Help Desk
Technical
Support
And sometimes Print, Security & Mobiles

11. THEWORLD I LIVE IN – DATA CENTRES
Mainframes / MIPS
Servers
Storage
Network Infrastructure
Disaster Recovery
Almost staff-less
Remote Operations
24 x 7 use
Shifts
100% availability
Capacity issues and planning

12. THEWORLD I LIVE IN – NETWORK OPERATIONS
WAN
Private Cloud
LANs
Firewalls
Network resilience
Cabling
BYOD
ACDsPBXs
Routers Big suppliers like
BT / C&W
SLAs
Security
Assets Management

13. THEWORLD I LIVE IN – DESKTOP
LANs
Firewalls
DesktopVirtualisation
Cabling
Technology refreshes SLAs
BYOD
Anti-virus
User Experience
Assets Management
Security

14. WHAT MIGHT MY OBJECTIVES LOOK LIKE?
My objectives will typically include:
• 99.99% availability & maintain good app response times
• Automation project delivery (data centre, network ops, desktop)
• BYOD project implementation (others design it, I implement it and
support it)
• Meeting internal customer satisfaction ratings (in core business units
e.g. stores)
• Reduce costs ‘by 10%’
• Meeting Help Desk internal SLAs
• Management of 3rd party SLAs

15. A DAY INTHE LIFE OFTHE IT OPS DIRECTOR (IN A
RETAILER) Vendor Pitch – network
automation
Interview – BYODTeam Leader
Planning Meeting – Roll-out of EPoS* system
Planning Meeting – 2014 store opening plans
Capacity planning meeting
Monthly review with infrastructure supplier
Budget review
Review with Business Unit
Heads (SLAs)
Security breach - review
SLA review – with 3rd party outsourcer
* Electronic Point of
Sale – stuff that
allows customers to
make a payment.

16. WHAT DO ITHINK ABOUT PEOPLE IWORKWITH?
CIO – ‘Takes me for granted. Does not appreciate the complexity’
Apps Director – ‘seems to forget how reliable the hardware is…’
CTO – ‘my closest ally / easy life as never has to implement anything’
Strategy/Transformation Director – ‘never met him/her…’
Compliance / Security – ‘they design impractical policies to
cover their backs…’

17. BUTWHAT DOTHEYTHINK ABOUT ME?
‘Does what I tell them to ….. eventually! Can be bound by process.’
(CTO)
‘Jumps to conclusions. Maybe not the sharpest tool in the box’. (Apps
Director)
‘Solid’ (CIO)
‘Leaky. Never follows what I specify 100%’ (Compliance / Security)

18. WHO’STARGETING ME? (OR MAYBE SHOULD BE)
Suppliers of all kinds of:
Enterprise IT hardware, e.g. blades, servers etc.
Connectivity and infrastructure: Fixed Line, Unify, PBX, LAN,
Managed Wan etc.
Systems software
Managed infrastructure
Managed Services
Software tools to manage/automate infrastructure

19. GLOSSARY:
LEARNTO SPEAK
OPS DIR

20. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• BYOD – ‘Bring Your Own Device‟, also known as „Consumerisation of IT‟. This is
the phenomenon of people increasingly using their own private devices for
work, and their expectations of service and usability rising accordingly. This is a
major security and organisational headache for IT in general, especially Ops.
Many still „just say No‟.
• Data Centre – where all the core mainframes and large servers are hosted in a
secure environment, air conditioned, protected, where ideally nothing can fail.
Usually involves mainframes, servers, storage and maybe some network
infrastructure. Usually in remote/inexpensive buildings, run by a small number
of staff.
• Mainframe – kind of like a supercomputer; one that will support thousands of
users all running off a range of different core systems, like banking systems,
retail systems, distribution systems. Dominated by IBM (the z series). This is
where most big organisations‟ core databases are.

21. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• Mainframe – kind of like a supercomputer; one that will support thousands of
users all running off a range of different core systems, like banking systems,
retail systems, distribution systems. Dominated by IBM (the z series). This is
where most big organisations‟ core databases are.
• Firewall - a firewall can either be software-based or hardware-based and is
used to help keep a network secure. Its primary objective is to control the
incoming and outgoing network traffic by analysing the data packets and
determining whether it should be allowed through or not, based on a
predetermined rule set.

22. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• MIPS – (Millions of instructions per second) This is a way of measuring the
power of a mainframe, so if someone says we have a datacentre with 200 MIPS
it gives you a sense of the processing power and the user base they may be
able to store. Basically it‟s a way of quantifying the processing capacity at your
disposal in your datacentres. E.g. “We‟ve got 200 MIPS, and we‟re likely to need
another 50 MIPS to take us through some growth, accommodate an
acquisition…”
• Storage – simply means disk space. Storage farms, as they tend to be known
are where all the databases are housed which all the core systems are run off,
typically housed within a mainframe. When talking about capacity they‟re likely
to mention storage in terms of number terabytes and gigabytes they have
available.

23. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• Disaster Recovery – Have to have plans for all aspects of IT infrastructure, in
the event of a catastrophic failure e.g. plane crash into datacentre. Need to
think about how a user goes through a network to core systems and
mainframes if this happens. There are nightly processes to take copies off site
to secure environments, so you could recover and reconnect your network as
quickly as possible. In some cases, this doesn‟t just mean systems – it can
include emergency office space too, and other facilities. But for Ops IT, it‟s
normally referring to the datacentre scenario – in terms of relationships with
outsourcers, it‟s almost like paying an insurance fee.

24. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• Remote operation – this is really important. It means being able to remotely
fix things on network to drive all the operational aspects of a data centre. For
the Ops Director this can mean driving down staff. It can involve a lot of
automation but not exclusively so.
• On a network there can be hundreds and thousands of devices that tell you
there‟s issues on the network before they manifest themselves to users. This
means that by the time the users notice it‟s getting a little bit slow – you‟ve
already got your supplier working on it.

25. GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’
• Capacity Planning – as an Ops Director I have capacity all the way from LANs,
Local Servers, on the Network (traffic), and through to datacentres. I have to
plan this capacity – i.e. what I need versus what I‟ve got and what I need to
budget. Ops Directors can have high availability targets (e.g. 99.5%) so this is a
big priority. Availability will start to really suffer if I have too much traffic on the
network – and this tends to manifest itself in problems downstream.
• Network Automation – This basically means having devices on the network all
communicating electronically with the network centre or helpdesk, making me
aware of problems (e.g. lines failing or degrading, routers going out etc.) The
automation part is how you are told about this and in many cases the solution
of the problem too.

26. • Desktop Virtualisation – easiest described with an example:
• If you have a few thousand people across some call centres all using PC-
based technologies, each machine has therefore got an operating system,
lots of utility programmes and loads of applications.
• As IT Ops, I have to manage and maintain all those 1000 users.
• If I virtualise the desktop there‟s no change from the user‟s point of view,
but all that software now runs on the server, not their PC.
• That means I can now update just one or two things rather than
thousands. All I‟ve got sitting on the „client‟ ( their individual PC or
workstation) is some software which allows me to redirect everything to
the server.
• A thin client = a client that is just running something like this software on
each PC. So sometimes people use „thin client‟ to mean desktop
virtualisation.
GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’

27. • Middleware – a piece of technology that allows me to develop applications.
It sits in front of the mainframes (remember these could be 30 yrs old, and
no-one wants to touch them. Sometimes they haven‟t got the skills to
maintain them anymore so you stick in a modern middleware platform).
• You can build rules within that middleware layer: for example, one that says
get me a full customer record and bring it all together at the front end.
• It‟s a way of making some rules for standard activity on core systems, but with
a technology that‟s modern and flexible and shields you from the potentially
expensive nightmares that are your core systems.
GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’

28. • Technology Re-Fresh – for example:
• You have Windows NT 4 and it‟s going out of support so you have to migrate
all the applications that are sitting on an NT platform over onto something
else.
• Windows XP is also going out of service, so you can imagine if you‟re a
banker who‟s got a huge number of applications on these platforms it can be
disruptive, expensive and risky to migrate them all across.
• Large organisations face many cycles of these disruptive technology refreshes.
GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’

29. • SLAs – Service Level Agreements between the organisation and its suppliers.
Often based on core demands from the business (internal customers). Based
on what levels of urgency are acceptable, (say for a user or multiple users not
being able to work for a certain amount of time) and what the typical
problems are that can cause inability to work, lost sales, or cause other
business-critical issues.
GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’

30. • ACD – Service Level Agreements between the organisation and its suppliers.
Often based on core demands from the business (internal customers). Based
on what levels of urgency are acceptable, (say for a user or multiple users not
being able to work for a certain amount of time) and what the typical
problems are that can cause inability to work, lost sales, or cause other
business-critical issues.
GLOSSARY: LEARNTO SPEAK ‘OPS DIR’

31. WHO AREWE AND
WHY DO
WE CARE?

32. ABOUTTHE MARKETING PRACTICE
With over 90 people and 10 years‟ growth we are 100% B2B-focused and one of
the UK‟s top 10 B2B agencies
We integrate all the skills you need under one roof to plan and manage end-to-
end programmes across EMEA (data, inside sales, creative, content, digital …)
And we focus on working with a few select clients to deliver results and prove
ROI
We live and breathe enterprise demand generation

33. TOTAKE A ONE-MINUTETOUR
OFTHE MARKETING PRACTICE,
VISIT:
www.themarketingpractice.com/
the-agency