Six Major Infrastructure and Operations Trends for 2022 According to Gartner

Gartner’s 2021 Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) survey, conducted online in June with 96 global IT leaders, reveals that I&O leaders must prepare for six major trends in the next 12‑18 months.

“I&O leaders need to drive change, not just absorb it, and provide more adaptive and resilient services for increasingly distributed workforces,” said Gartner Vice President Jeffrey Hewitt.

Trend 1 – Just‑In‑Time Infrastructure: Speed of deployment becomes as important as deploying the right infrastructure in the right location (hosted centers, data centers, edge). This approach reduces deployment time and serves as a differentiator when evaluating service providers.

Trend 2 – Digital Natives: Companies that built their business models on public cloud and digital capabilities (e.g., ride‑sharing, online food delivery) are proliferating. I&O leaders face a “join or compete” dilemma with these agile peers.

“Traditional I&O organizations can either produce highly flexible, innovative products themselves or partner with digital‑native firms,” Hewitt noted.

Trend 3 – Management Confluence: Tools for IT service management (ITSM) and AIOps are converging into integrated platforms, requiring composable technology that enables rapid, easy combination of system and data components.

According to Gartner’s 2022 CIO and technology executive survey, 58% of firms with strong composable capabilities are expanding data, analytics, and application integration, outperforming peers.

“I&O leaders can inventory current management tools, merge overlapping ones, and create a more valuable, comprehensive toolset to boost agility and business outcomes,” Hewitt explained.

Trend 4 – Data Proliferation: The variety, speed, and volume of data will continue to grow exponentially, placing I&O leaders at the center of data‑handling policies, retention, and regulatory compliance, often in close collaboration with chief data officers.

“I&O staff must work closely with CDOs to raise data literacy and support enterprise‑wide data management,” Hewitt said.

Trend 5 – Business Acumen: I&O leaders must guide their departments through a rapidly changing, distributed technology landscape while addressing talent gaps. Gartner reports 64% of I&O leaders cite skill and resource shortages as their biggest challenge.

“Technical skill lifespans are shortening; organizations now seek I&O hires with business backgrounds rather than purely technical degrees,” Hewitt observed.

Trend 6 – Career Lattices (from Career Ladders): The traditional linear career path is giving way to a lattice model that values soft skills, learning agility, and cross‑domain expertise. Gartner TalentNeuron data shows 29% of skills required for I&O roles in 2018 will be obsolete by 2022.

“While this shift may require longer work hours and a change in mindset, it will dramatically increase internal opportunities as teams move beyond geographic silos toward collaborative environments,” Hewitt concluded.