What is IT Automation? | Motivations, Benefits and Tools

Automation refers to the tools and practices used to automate jobs, batch processes, and work processes to further develop IT productivity.

IT automation encompasses a wide variety of tools, practices, and capacities. It’s likewise a quickly developing field driven by persistent progressions in computerized innovation.

This post will discuss what defines IT automation, what IT automation software is used for, and why it’s becoming increasingly important as organizations strive for digital growth.

We’ll also cover the major categories of IT automation, discuss common automation strategies, and closely examine the significant trends shaping the impact of IT automation today.

Highlights

• IT Automation is automating IT tasks, including jobs, batch processes, and workflows.
• IT automation mitigates the pressures of digital proliferation and market forces.
• There are many types of IT automation and a wide range of use cases.
• IT automation quickly evolves and incorporates new technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, to optimize efficiency and scalability.

What is IT automation?

IT automation, a process that significantly reduces manual intervention, is achieved by automating jobs, batch processes, and workflows using practices and tools. It empowers professionals by saving time, increasing efficiency, and reducing operating costs.

The key difference between IT automation and common point solutions such as native schedulers, home-grown tools, and custom scripts is that IT automation solutions are designed to integrate various digital tools by automating workflows from multiple sources.

IT automation is a broad term that encompasses many different types of tools and strategies. As we’ll see below, IT automation solutions offer a wide variety of capabilities that can be subdivided into other fields of automation.

What is IT automation used for?

IT automation is excellent for automating and scheduling time-consuming, error-prone, repetitive tasks. These include extensive batch processes that must be completed daily and large data transfers or entry tasks.

By automating manual, time-consuming processes, IT professionals can save themselves time, reduce operating costs, and increase efficiency. Moreover, IT automation can relieve the burden of managing tasks that are otherwise vulnerable to human error, reducing stress and increasing productivity.

Meanwhile, more excellent integration capabilities mean that IT can use a single platform to manage workflows from multiple tools. IT automation solutions can effectively automate and integrate workflows across an environment and organization.

Ultimately, different IT automation tools offer different capabilities—a wide variety of IT automation tools offer everything from analytics to workload balancing to extract, transform, and load (ETL) automation, cloud provisioning, and more.

Why do we need to automate IT?

Automating repetitive, time-consuming, and manual tasks increases operational efficiency, optimizes resources, and reduces IT costs. Specific IT automation solutions can simplify workflow integrations and help develop versatile, scalable architectures.

Market forces

Market forces play a significant role in popularizing automation. Leveraging digital tools is crucial to staying competitive. Organizations are implementing more digital tools quickly, so staying ahead of changes in the market means automating alongside critical players in your industry.

As a result of this trend, IT teams have seen their workloads surge, their responsibilities multiply, and their business relationships shift.

IT complexity

As the number of digital tools in IT’s catalog has grown, so has IT complexity. This complexity refers to the challenges IT professionals face in managing and integrating a wide range of digital tools and technologies. In a global survey of large enterprise leaders, 46% of respondents agreed that reducing IT complexity supports innovation.

The problem is that many digital tools and technologies organizations deploy need to be more compatible, forcing IT to manage fragmented, siloed environments. This makes it difficult to pass information or to manage dependencies between tools, hampering efforts towards scalability and making it almost impossible to create a unified, integrated environment.

IT automation solutions manage and reduce IT complexity by automating end-to-end, cross-silo workflows. IT automation tools are designed to integrate with various other tools, either through custom scripting, pre-built job steps, or out-of-the-box integrations. In the best-case scenario, a single IT automation solution can help IT manage, monitor, automate, and coordinate workflows from disparate tools across the organization. They can easily consolidate their digital portfolios and simplify their IT environments.

Rapid change

IT departments are not the only ones being forced to adapt quickly. Digital technologies rapidly evolve, driving changes across organizations, markets, and industries. IT automation solutions enable IT to support a dynamic, adaptable organization, providing a sense of preparedness and control in the face of rapid change. 

However, IT departments often rely on legacy systems engineered for static, homogeneous environments that can’t easily integrate with new tools and technologies.

IT automation solutions enable IT to support a dynamic, adaptable organization. These solutions provide a single platform that IT teams can use to coordinate and automate workflows across the organization. A notable aspect of IT automation is the concept of ‘low-code IT automation ‘, which drastically reduces the need to write custom scripts by offering pre-built job step templates and integrations. This approach to automation can significantly enhance the adaptability and efficiency of IT operations. 

Surge of data

Data is essential to organizations interested in improving products, services, processes, and practices. Over the last several years, as mobile devices, IoT, and cloud computing technologies have evolved, the volume of data has grown exponentially, straining IT resources.

Regardless, organizations are pushing IT to develop the architectures necessary for gathering, processing, and analyzing vast volumes of data.

IT automation tools can prevent IT from drowning in data by automating data management processes. These include ETL jobs and data repository updates that ensure data warehouses perform in near real-time. When IT doesn’t have to monitor hundreds or thousands of ETL workflows manually, it can save time. IT automation tools will also integrate with business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing tools, provide Hadoop automation, and more. Thus, IT can automate end-to-end workflows that deliver the data and analytics line-of-business leaders need.

What are the benefits of IT automation?

When implemented correctly, IT automation can significantly benefit an organization and its employees, making it a crucial aspect of modern IT operations.

• Compliance and security: Regulatory compliance and data security are non-negotiable for organizations looking to scale and increase customer satisfaction, and automating IT processes such as data flow makes these more straightforward to achieve by mitigating the vulnerabilities inherent in complex processes.
• Cost reduction: Automating repetitive tasks eliminates the need for manual labor and extensive oversight, both significant ongoing costs associated with IT maintenance.
• Enhanced productivity: Employees can spend the time they once dedicated to mundane work to higher-value activities that support business goals.
• Improved accuracy: Automations are less prone to error, so IT leaders can have confidence that IT and business processes — and the data within them — are reliable.
• Scalability: Consistency and accuracy drive improved service delivery and enable enterprises to respond swiftly to new opportunities for growth with confident decision-making.

Automation tools for IT

Various tools can help you achieve IT automation. The tools listed below provide IT professionals with automation solutions that solve problems and perform particular processes.

There are also powerful, versatile IT automation tools that transcend the following categories and overlap with many other types of automation.

Here are the nine primary types of automation tools in IT.

1. Batch process automation

Batch processing refers to the group production of multiple jobs or workflows. Jobs are often run together during “batch windows,” the nightly periods of low resource demands when large batches of jobs can be processed together without delay or interference. B process automation removes the need for human interaction in batch processing.

2. Big data automation

Big data automation tools help IT professionals gather, organize, and process vast volumes of data in far less time than it would take to do so manually. This capability allows IT teams to discover patterns and anomalies in data sets that are otherwise too massive to be thoroughly analyzed by IT personnel.

3. Business process automation

Business process automation (BPA) tools automate line-of-business workflows. They offer functions and features specific to marketing, sales, finance, etc. BPA tools are essential to digital transformation goals because they allow businesses to restructure their processes as digital-first processes.

4. Digital process automation

Digital process automation (DPA) refers to the automation and optimization of business and IT processes. DPA platforms facilitate the end-to-end flow of information between business applications, IT systems, employees, and customers to support the customer experience with access to real-time data. 

5. Enterprise automation

While BPA automates specific workflows, enterprise automation tools develop cross-silo, end-to-end workflows and orchestrate them to create a single, enterprise-wide automation environment.

6. Infrastructure and operations automation

When infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams need to update operating systems or configure servers on virtual machines, they can use an operations automation platform. IT operations and infrastructure automation focus on an environment’s hardware and middleware and the processes and workflows that address customer needs.

7. IT process automation

Intelligence process automation (ITPA) automates line-of-business clients with BPA and back-end IT processes. ITPA  tools orchestrate and integrate workflows for IT tools and IT processes.

8. Managed file transfer automation

Managed file transfer (MFT) automation tools automate and manage the transfer of data between servers using FTP, FTPS, or SFTP. These tools emphasize security and encryption to help organizations meet compliance and regulatory demands.

9. Robotic process automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) tools are software bots that mimic how humans complete manual processes. Users train RPA tools by demonstrating a process the software can complete independently. RPA tools automate manual, high-volume routine tasks such as data entry.

Intelligent Automation refers to applying both machine learning and artificial intelligence to RPA tools.

Workload automation

Workload automation (WLA) solutions are general-purpose IT automation tools that help users orchestrate and integrate automated workflows across the enterprise. If ITPA focuses on IT and BPA focuses on line-of-business processes, then WLA is a synthesis of the two. It’s a workflow automation solution for enterprise workload balancing and workflow optimization.

 

Automation strategies for IT

Automation isn’t just about tools but also the strategies that guide implementation. IT complexity and hinder integration efforts without a coherent strategy.

With a proper IT automation strategy, a powerful, low-code or no-code automation solution can accelerate IT’s impact and drive faster achievement of digital goals by generating repeatable automated processes.

A viable automation strategy becomes especially important as environments grow and automation spreads. An automation solution can coordinate and consolidate tools, simplifying the IT environment and creating the potential for scalability.

The top three IT automation strategies in use today are:

• The architectural, layered approach
• Bimodal IT
• Workflow optimization

The architectural, layered approach

The architectural, layered approach to IT automation calls for a low-code IT automation solution that can provide a single control point for coordinating and managing various automation tools.

This strategy benefits IT by coordinating and consolidating disparate automation into a single framework. IT can direct task execution across any number of heterogeneous environments. Data, information, and dependencies can integrate and support orchestrating workflows across the organization.

The architectural, layered approach contrasts with the elemental approach to IT automation, defined by ad-hoc point solutions powered by native schedulers and custom scripts.

This approach allows for:

• Quick and reliable automation of complex, end-to-end workflows
• A drastic reduction in the need for custom scripting
• A lower overall cost of IT and business operations

Bimodal IT

Bimodal IT calls for two parallel systems, or modes, within IT. The first mode relies on legacy infrastructure to provide certainty and stability for operations and SLAs. The second mode leverages new tools and technologies to drive innovation and develop new processes, products, or services.

Maintaining these two parallel systems allows IT to develop scalable solutions and agile processes while insulating traditional infrastructures from uncertainty.

However, these two modes must be able to communicate. IT departments must manage data, information, and dependencies across these two modes. The solution is to use a low-code IT automation solution to manage the operations of the first mode and the development of the second. A single automation platform can unite a bimodal environment.

Workflow optimization

Workflow optimization refers to redesigning workflows to leverage an IT automation solution to build more efficient, integrated workflows that improve SLA adherence.

W flow optimization should apply to existing workflows (re-imagining them in the context of the IT automation solution) and new workflows (shifting automation to the left in the project development cycle).

By building automation into processes from an early development phase, IT teams can increase efficiency and agility and respond faster to changes by addressing issues across different environments.

Trends in IT automation

As digital technologies continue to develop, organizations can apply IT automation tools in new and exciting ways, better adapting to dynamic market forces and placing new requirements on short-staffed IT teams.

The following trends in IT automation offer a glimpse of the direction IT is headed.

Digital transformation

The modern business mantra is that every business is a digital business. However, more than digitizing processes and offering services through an app is required. Organizations must redesign themselves to meet dynamic market pressures by continuously evolving.

As a result, they can no longer rely on fragmented IT environments and static legacy infrastructure.

To meet digital transformation goals, IT teams must now leverage IT automation tools to help coordinate and consolidate disparate tools and integrate cross-silo workflows. 

Cloud automation

Managing cloud resources can be time-consuming. IT can have dozens or thousands of virtual machines in the cloud. Operating cloud resources at this scale is untenable without automation. 

For example, it becomes prohibitively time-consuming to locate the best resources on which to run specific workflows. If virtual machines are left idle, IT’s bill increases as it has to license more resources.

Automating the provisioning and de-provisioning of cloud resources is cloud automation. Its dynamic nature means it’s easier to scale resources up and down depending on the workload. IT automation solutions can quickly deploy hundreds or thousands of cloud resources, set up storage and server clusters, and monitor the environment so virtual machines are never idle.

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Hybrid IT

Compliance and regulatory requirements can limit an organization’s cloud-based capabilities. As a result, some choose a hybrid IT approach, balancing practicality with innovation. Hybrid IT employs traditional, on-site infrastructures (such as mainframes and data warehouses) and cloud resources, either public or private.

Managing a hybrid environment can be challenging, especially because cloud resources are only sometimes engineered to integrate with outside technologies.

IT automation solutions help automate processes within hybrid environments, allowing users to integrate, coordinate, and automate processes across disparate infrastructure resources. With an IT automation solution, IT can seamlessly manage data, information, and dependencies across cloud-based and on-site resources and efficiently allocate workloads across environments.

Intelligent automation

Intelligent automation is any IT tool that utilizes machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).

IT automation tools can drastically improve processes and outcomes over time by optimizing IT resources and improving efficiency through data analyses.

ML-powered intelligent automation tools can analyze historical and real-time data to predict and prepare for future resource requirements. This allows intelligent automation tools to scale or reserve the necessary resources in advance.

By leveraging ML and AI, an intelligent automation tool drastically reduces wait times and idle machine resources, improving SLA records.

Self-service automation

Organizations rely on digital tools and technologies to manage critical, day-to-day workflows. As a result, IT teams have seen their workloads surge and their responsibilities rapidly multiply.

Self-service automation portals are gaining popularity as a safe, effective way to reduce the volume of day-to-day tasks that IT must complete. Self-service portals are user-friendly applications that allow line-of-business personnel to run recurrent, repetitive processes without involving IT. This can save IT much time, even though IT retains ownership and administrative rights over processes and portals.

Self-service portals allow line-of-business users to query data, share files, generate BI reports, and more, while help desks can provision machines, reboot systems, and reset passwords.

Conclusion

It has become essential to critical, day-to-day processes, innovation, product and service development, customer engagement strategies, and more. As a result, IT is moving closer to the organization’s center.

The technologies we rely on are rapidly evolving, and organizations are constantly changing, trying to anticipate where markets are going.

Cloud services and AI are two of the biggest trends in IT automation. Cloud services have made huge volumes of resources dynamic and fast, and AI is now integral to developing big data and analytics. Because of the scales cloud services and AI operates on, IT automation will continue to play a role in how organizations leverage these technologies.

IT automation tools have been empowering IT for decades. As the technology continues to develop, the capabilities these solutions provide will evolve to meet the needs of tomorrow’s IT function.

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