Introduction to IT

In today’s world, almost every aspect of a business relies on technology, making IT organizations a crucial part of any company. But what exactly do these IT teams do, and how do they manage the complexities and details of all the systems they create and manage?

This is where our IT Handbook site comes in.

We explain all these IT activities using an intuitive structure, which helps enhance your understanding of IT organizations at the same time. We use this structure in key topic sections, and it includes:

Combined, we call them “Function Layers” as both functions and their layers serve to organize topics. This approach is very helpful for understanding how IT organizations work and where particular topics fit.

Having clarified our approach, we can now introduce these core IT Functions with a high-level description of each. They include:

These seven categories are the “major functions” of an IT organization. Even if an IT organization uses different names for these functions or divides them up differently, the functions should be there!

Let’s review these IT Functions in a “story sequence” to help you understand why we identify them as the core building blocks of IT organizations.

First, a company needs an IT Management team that organizes the IT functionality. This group then analyzes, designs, and creates IT Solutions for the business. Once complete and tested, “Solution Delivery” is the final step to implement the functionality.

Before turning them on and starting to use the IT system as a “live” production platform, IT management needs to ensure that the Security works well and that only the correct people can access and work in it.

With that in place, the company now has a live Business Solution that supports the users, provides the correct functionality, and stores all the business data.

This Business Solution was deployed by IT management on specific computer platforms, with servers, operating systems, and storage to make it all work. This is called “Infrastructure“.

That Infrastructure has to be located somewhere, and that is where “Facilities” play a role. Historically, companies have data centers where they house their equipment or use a service to do it for them.

Last but not least, IT management must ensure that everything works well and has proper technical support. So, there are Support Services teams to assist users, fix system issues, and monitor security to keep everything working as expected!

So, there you have it:

A complete “Intro to IT” with a breakdown into seven core Functions.

Navigate to the IT Functions pages to read more about each one!