IT Operations.com

IT automation

By Kinza Yasar

What is IT automation?

IT automation is the use of instructions to create a repeated process that replaces an IT professional's manual work in data centers and cloud deployments. Automation software tools, frameworks and appliances conduct the tasks with minimum administrator intervention. The scope of IT automation ranges from single actions to discrete sequences and, ultimately, to an autonomous IT deployment that takes actions based on user behavior and other event triggers.

IT automation is different from orchestration, but the terms are commonly used together. Automation accomplishes a task repeatedly without human intervention. Orchestration is a broader concept in which the user coordinates automated tasks into a cohesive process or workflow for IT and the business.

How IT automation works

IT automation relies on software tools to define and conduct a prescribed series of detailed actions that are invoked manually or by an external trigger, such as a change in IT capacity demand.

IT automation replaces a series of actions and responses between an administrator and the IT environment. For example, an IT automation platform -- such as Microsoft Windows PowerShell -- combines cmdlets, variables and other components into a script to mimic the series of commands and steps that an administrator would invoke one line at a time through the command-line interface (CLI) to provision a virtual machine (VM) or create a backup process. An administrator can achieve a more complex IT automation outcome by combining multiple scripts into a series. These limited-scope automation processes are most beneficial when they replace a task that an administrator must perform frequently.

Enterprise-class IT infrastructure automation tools trigger actions in response to thresholds and other situational conditions in the IT environment. Advanced IT automation tools oversee the configuration of systems, software and other infrastructure components; recognize unauthorized or unexpected changes; and automatically take corrective actions. For example, if a workload stops responding, this triggers the automated steps to restart it on a different server that has the available capacity to run it. When IT automation is set to enforce a desired state of configurations, the tool detects changes in a server's configuration that are out of spec and restores it to the correct settings.

What IT automation is used for

IT operations managers and IT teams can use IT automation for several tasks, including the following:

Benefits of IT automation

IT automation offers the following benefits:

Challenges of IT automation

While IT automation has several beneficial use cases, it doesn't always guarantee results. IT staff must be competent and skilled using IT automation tools to translate behaviors into concrete procedural steps.

IT automation can pose the following challenges:

Different types of automation

Due to the digital transformation, businesses need to expedite and automate business processes that in the past were done manually, such as record keeping or HR onboarding. IT automation and business automation work collectively to help achieve this goal. For example, a company might use IT automation to transition from a legacy paper-driven and time-intensive human resources (HR) onboarding process to an automated and online HR onboarding platform.

The following highlights five types of automation:

  1. IT automation is a broad term that's often combined with business task automation. An automated IT workflow can accomplish a strictly IT task, such as provisioning additional storage to a VM, or a business task, such as creating a new user account on the corporate email system.
  2. Service automation uses technology to deliver services in an automated manner. IT automation and service automation are essentially the same.
  3. Process automation improves workflows, typically in factories and other settings, where the same task or series of tasks occurs repeatedly.
  4. Business process automation or business automation is the application of IT automation to achieve goals such as increased worker productivity or lower costs of operations.
  5. Robotic process automation is a software technology that makes it easy to automate digital tasks. Users create software robots called bots that mimic and execute business processes.

Major IT automation vendors

IT automation products appear and evolve rapidly; each product has a specific focus and scope for IT and the business.

Microsoft provides automation in products including System Center 2016 Orchestrator and Service Manager, PowerShell and PowerShell Desired State Configuration.

Other automation vendors offer more narrowly focused product lines. For example, Broadcom provides Server Automation for tasks such as server provisioning and patching, operating system configuration, and automation of storage and application components, client systems and other major enterprise specializations. A similar tool -- BMC Software's BladeLogic Server Automation -- includes preconfigured compliance policies for the Center for Internet Security, Defense Information Systems Agency, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and other regulations.

There are also numerous automation vendors in the software-defined infrastructure market, including Chef, Puppet, SaltStack and HashiCorp. These DevOps IT automation tools support software development and deployment integrated with infrastructure configurations, sometimes called infrastructure as code. The automation capabilities are designed so users can create and support consistent workflows from development to IT operations.

The future of automation

IT automation is hardly a new concept, but the technology is still in its formative stages. Even the most full-featured tools depend on an IT professional or team to develop and maintain discrete automation elements, such as scripts, templates, policies and workflows.

IT automation continues to transform in the following two ways:

AI and machine learning. IT automation will progress to act with greater intelligence and autonomy. IT automation platforms are likely to rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. For example, an automation tool can synthesize data on configurations, performance and other information across an IT deployment and process these inputs to discover a normal system operations benchmark, a deviation from which would trigger corrective actions.

Another real-life example is the company Sobereye Inc., which uses AI to improve workplace safety in the construction, mining, transportation and manufacturing industries. By offering a one-minute self-test to employees, it checks for any impairments, such as sleep deprivation, fatigue, medications and drugs to eliminate human errors, which are the biggest contributors to workplace accidents.

Augmented reality. The use of augmented reality (AR) and IT automation is closing workforce gaps in healthcare companies and expediting training for new hires across many other industries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, during the Great Resignation, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans quit their jobs. Many companies are using AR to bridge the workforce gap and to get new hires to become productive employees. For example, some warehouse operators have discovered that using AR systems that work with voice commands, such as Google's smart glasses, can shorten the employee's training period by displaying customer order information and product location directly in the wearer's field of vision. Employees might be guided to product shelf arrangements and to each item in the order of picking. Traditionally, this would require performing multiple steps to retrieve the product.

Enterprise automation technologies, including low code, iPaaS and declarative automation, play important factors in improving business processes. Learn about the four key enterprise automation technologies in depth.

27 Dec 2022

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