Automation

Data Center Automation refers to increased capabilities for efficient management of distributed computing environments. Advances made by systems management vendors and online services leaders are equipping enterprises with the tools and know-how to make step changes in the way IT is managed.

The overriding goals of data center automation are to:

• Minimise manual labor in IT operations
• Increase utilization of IT assets, decreasing capex costs
• Improve the abilities for fast provisioning and re-purposing of IT assets, leading to greater business agility

The main challenges lie in the way tools are integrated and how related processes are optimised to exploit them:

• User expectations are changing to expect rapid, ‘real-time’ service provisioning and response management
• Vendor landscape changing with new software entrants gaining momentum and traditional vendors continuing to acquire and integrate companies
• Organizations have significant legacy investments in systems management which may conflict with current best of breed tools
• Large enterprises with diverse standards pose a significantly more complex challenge for systems management than green-field cloud provider environments to which they are compared
• Internal toolsets and processes are typically focused on technology silo’s (e.g. product-centric view for server or network teams) causing duplication of effort and forcing manual interfaces between teams which hinder delivery of end to end services
• Increased levels of virtualization, automation and capabilities for internal cloud services challenge the generic ITIL model for continuous service improvement by blurring the boundaries of what have been considered separate capabilities.
• Virtualization also substantially increases the number of “things” to manage and the volume of data produced by management tools

Automation Assessment and Agile Infrastructure white paper
(click on image to download)