Enterprise needs to adopt a cloud "service culture" to innovate, says Oracle

"ITOps to DevOps to NoOps"

An innovative approach to IT requires adopting a "service culture" for the rest of the business, Oracle has advised.

Speaking on Computing's web seminar entitled So you want to be an AI billionare? Correct use of cloud for cutting edge innovation, senior business director for Oracle head of technology and cloud, UK, Ireland and Israel John Abel advised several ways to kick off innovation-led changes when looking at IT across a business - many of which involved taking certain views on cloud.

"Look for an integrated stack," said Abel, who recommended this bundle of scalable network, storage and server infrastructure with a hybrid cloud on the side.

"Then you want choice, and hybrid. Your strategy needs to be played out."

He also advised careful choice of providers when tendering, as agile business practice may present issues with long term, inflexible contracts.

"If you tender long, then you can end up saying, ‘This is it for the next six years' but it shouldn't work that way - the ability to migrate is critical, too," said Abel.

According to Abel, once a company has gone for an integrated stack and hybrid approach, it's time to change the culture.

"One thing you need to flip from is to change to a service culture for the business, not just IT. You can go from ITOps to DevOps to NoOps. That change in culturecan see you moving up the stack to being service provider, rather than just a tech provider."

Abel suggested that for any companies trying to innovate, even when the technology piece is modernised, the biggest challenge to so-called "heritage business" can still often be culture - but lessons can still be learned from the old methods.

"The two worlds [new and old] are very different. One is risk averse and rightly so, the other involves governance. A risk taker has to borrow both worlds. The next phase will come out of innovation."