IT Infrastructure Automation- Why it is Important?

Should you automate your IT infrastructure? To answer this question, ask your IT team that do they have enough time to fulfill customer demands and maintain process efficiency. If their answer is no, then it’s time to transform.

As technology has moved in every business or industry, organizations require a vast array of tools and platforms that are orchestrated together and offer a cross-organizational approach. As businesses rely mostly on IT teams for integration capability and creating new workflow and processes, they have a lot more to serve. Operational tasks such as routine maintenance and responding to incidents take most of the time for IT teams. This leaves them with little scope to work toward transforming or automating legacy infrastructure—one of the key reasons businesses fall behind their industry peers. That’s where IT infrastructure comes in.

What is IT Infrastructure Automation?

IT infrastructure automation refers to the process of using technology and tools to automate the management, deployment, and monitoring of IT infrastructure. This can include servers, storage devices, networking equipment, databases, and other components of an organization’s IT environment.

By automating routine tasks such as software updates, backups, and resource provisioning, IT infrastructure automation can increase efficiency, reduce errors, and free up IT staff to focus on more strategic tasks. It can also help organizations achieve greater consistency and standardization across their IT infrastructure, making it easier to manage and maintain.

Source- Gartner

Why IT Infrastructure Automation is Important?

In an IT ecosystem, there are various components across different layers that require repetitive and manual processes for maintenance, management, and updates. To address this challenge, organizations require automation in IT to enhance the speed and agility of product delivery while keeping the infrastructure’s cost and complexity in check.

How to Automate IT Infrastructure?

Even though automation can help organizations to reduce the strain from the employee doing repetitive and manual work and streamline IT operations. It requires careful planning. Because not every process is a perfect fit for automation. Let’s see what we can automate in IT infrastructure.

1. Server Provisioning

   In IT operations, server provisioning refers to the process of automatically deploying and configuring servers in an IT infrastructure. The server provisioning process involves multiple steps such as requests, approval, provisioning, configuration, integration, and verification. Using pre-defined rules and automation technologies in IT infrastructure, IT teams can easily manage the request raised by users for server application requests, review it, deploy a new server instance based on pre-defined templates, and integrate the new server into the IT environment and ensure that all organization standards are met.

2. Configuration Management

   Using automation in this process enables IT teams to efficiently unify the IT operations across disparate machines and deployed environments. Having automation tools in configuration management, IT teams can easily identify the infrastructure components, define the desired configuration state, develop and test configuration templates, monitor and audit the configuration changes, and update the configuration management as per the requirement.

3. Application Deployment

   Application deployment automation refers to the process of automating the deployment of software applications to different environments, such as development, testing, staging, and production. The purpose of application deployment automation is to simplify and streamline the process of deploying software, thereby reducing the time and effort required for deployment and minimizing the risk of errors or downtime.

4. Orchestration

   Orchestration automation refers to the process of automating complex workflows across multiple systems and applications in order to streamline and optimize the management of IT infrastructure. The goal of orchestration automation is to eliminate the need for manual intervention and to reduce the risk of errors by automating routine tasks.

   orchestration automation can involve automating tasks such as provisioning and configuring virtual machines, deploying software applications, and managing network resources..By implementing orchestration automation, organizations can achieve greater efficiency, scalability, and agility in their IT operations

5. Compliance and Security

   Compliance and security automation in IT infrastructure refers to the use of automation tools and processes to ensure that IT infrastructure is secure, compliant with regulations and standards, and protected against threats. Compliance and security automation can involve automating tasks such as vulnerability scanning, configuration management, and incident response.
   

Benefits of IT Infrastructure Automation

1. Real-Time IT Operations Monitoring

   IT infrastructure involves multiple elements such as software, hardware, networks, etc., that require continuous updates, provisioning, and configurations. However, handling these repetitive tasks manually is not only inefficient but also tedious. To address this challenge, IT infrastructure automation enables IT teams to automate these tasks and efficiently manage the infrastructure using end-to-end monitoring capabilities.
   This automation approach provides real-time updates to users, enabling organizations to identify errors and bugs before they cause serious problems. Additionally, with the ability to monitor infrastructure performance and quickly remediate issues, IT staff gain greater flexibility and control over their infrastructure management processes.
   

2. Be Secured and Compliant

   Using automation in IT infrastructure can help organizations ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, by automating the process of verifying compliance and maintaining audit trails.

3. Scalable IT Operations

   With automation in IT infrastructure, IT teams can scale more easily by reducing the need for manual intervention in routine tasks. This can help organizations adapt to changing business needs and handle increasing workloads more effectively.

4. Ensure Continuous Service Delivery

   Automation in this process enables IT infrastructure components to connect using code through continuous integration. This helps align the components with relevant tasks and identify potential challenges in completing those tasks, providing solutions to enhance operational efficiency. This improved workflow results in continuous configuration and delivery of IT services, minimizing downtime for employees. The automation tool facilitates seamless integration and coordination of IT infrastructure components, ensuring efficient and reliable delivery of services.

[Also Read – What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Healthcare? Use Cases, Benefits, and Challenges in 2023]

Should IT Infrastructure Automation be a Yes?

Yes, IT infrastructure automation can provide significant benefits to organizations by improving efficiency, reliability, scalability, and security in their IT operations. Automating repetitive tasks can free up IT teams to focus on more strategic work, while real-time updates and monitoring can help identify and remediate issues before they cause serious problems. Additionally, automation can help ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards, reducing the risk of penalties and fines. Therefore, IT infrastructure automation is highly recommended for organizations looking to optimize their IT operations and improve their overall business performance.