11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
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Understanding automation
Updated September 20, 2023 Copy URL
Automation software helps improve efficiency—delivering value faster while solving IT and workflow challenges.
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What is automation?
Automation is the use of technology to perform tasks with reduced human assistance. Any industry that encounters repetitive
tasks can use automation, but automation is more prevalent in the industries of manufacturing, robotics, and automotives, as
well as in IT systems.
IT automation Cloud automation Business automation
The use of technology to automate The use of technology that performs The alignment of business process
repetitive, manual IT tasks such as tasks with reduced human assistance management (BPM), business
provisioning, network management, to unite cloud management process automation (BPA), business
and data backup and recovery. processes, including cloud rules management (BRM), and
operations, orchestration, business optimization with modern
and governance. application development to respond
to market changes.
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11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
Business process Robotic process Industrial automation
automation automation The reduction of human labor in
The use of software to automate The use of software robots to manufacturing processes as part of
repeatable, multistep business perform repetitive tasks previously factory automation efforts, usually
transactions. done by humans. to the point where human workers
simply provide oversight at a control
panel or other human-machine
Keep reading Keep reading interface (HMI).
Artificial intelligence Machine learning Deep learning
Rule-based software that performs Adaptive algorithms that use Multiple adaptive algorithms,
tasks typically accomplished with predictive models to perform tasks automation software, and programs
human intervention. without explicit instructions— that perform a fixed repetitive task—
automatically modifying algorithms such as extracting small details from
with each completed task raw images.
Learn what you can do with AI
Keep reading See what it can do
Why automate?
In today’s world of rapid technological change, the challenges organizations face—to support employees and partners, reach
new customers, and provide innovative products and services—are more complex than ever before. IT plays a crucial role in
meeting these demands, but also acts as a blocker if it isn’t scalable and can’t keep up with demand.
As enterprises scale, so does the difficulty of deploying and maintaining environments that are stable, more secure, and
consistent. To break it down further:
IT operations are resource-intensive—and maintaining legacy systems and processes at the same time as new ones only
increases complexity.
Requirements and demand are outgrowing IT and business capabilities.
The scale of technology (virtualization, cloud, containers, etc.) is too great to do manually.
In this constantly shifting environment, automation has become a strategic imperative. Automation is critical to managing,
changing, and adapting your IT infrastructure and the way your enterprise operates. IT teams can automate complex processes
to increase efficiency, productivity, and flexibility—while also reducing costs and human error.
Get a system administrator's guide to IT automation
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11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
Open Your Possibilities: Automation with Richard Henshall
Advantages of IT automation
Automation is not meant to replace people—its purpose is to augment human capabilities. This is known as the paradox of
automation: as you become efficient using automation, human involvement becomes more important but less frequent.
Some may see automation as a tool that eliminates jobs, but automation actually frees up existing IT staff to focus on larger
challenges. By simplifying processes and reducing manual tasks, IT teams can improve efficiency and productivity—while also
preserving resources to work toward strategic goals, such as improving customer satisfaction.
Automation can help enterprises achieve:
Greater productivity. By automating mundane, repetitive tasks, a higher volume of tasks can be performed more quickly
with less oversight, allowing IT staff to spend more time on value-adding projects.
Better reliability. Decreasing the amount of human intervention also reduces the risk for errors and improves consistency.
Automation ensures that steps are done the same way every time—so teams know exactly when processes, tests, updates, or
workflows are going to happen, how long they’ll take, and whether they complete correctly.
Easier governance. Relying on large teams of people to perform complex processes can easily lead to knowledge gaps and
miscommunication, both within and between groups in an organization. Codifying knowledge in automation can help to
ensure more controlled, consistent governance across teams and tasks.
24/7 operations. Since automation can execute tasks in the middle of the night without human intervention, businesses can
automate remediation at any time, reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR) and minimizing downtime.
Better security. Automation can be used to identify, prevent, and respond more quickly—in a standardized way—to potential
security threats across IT environments.
Accelerate your business with IT automation
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11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
Developing a unified strategy
Despite automation's undeniable value, its benefits can be limited if adopting automation is not an enterprise-wide initiative. As
organizations implement a comprehensive automation strategy, they must often navigate cultural challenges that have built up
through years of disconnected teams relying on inefficient practices.
Automation in isolation
Many organizations already automate some number of IT operations, but this automation is often isolated—in the form of ad-
hoc tools designed for a single domain. These disparate approaches may speed specific functions, but they can be difficult to
scale and update as technological requirements evolve.
With this disconnected approach, IT teams often have to frequently recreate and customize automation for a specialized
purpose, which takes time away from building critical services and customer experiences. Focusing on piecemeal solutions also
makes it more challenging to share automation expertise and develop consistent governance strategies across an enterprise.
Building support for enterprise adoption
In order to adopt automation across your organization, all teams—including line of business, network, security, operations,
development, and infrastructure—must be on board and participate. Clear processes for creating, deploying, managing, and
adapting automation are essential for broad adoption and ongoing use. Many organizations also choose to establish a formal
team of automation experts—like a Center of Excellence—to develop an effective adoption strategy and support new and
experienced automation practitioners across the enterprise.
An automation platform provides the capabilities for building, running, and managing your automation. In contrast to simple
automation tools, an automation platform gives your organization a unified foundation for creating, deploying, and sharing
consistent automation content and knowledge at scale.
Building an effective automation solution takes time and energy. Working with a trusted partner like Red Hat—who is able to
handle the heavy lifting for you—can help you save effort and start automating faster.
Free webinar series: Build your toolkit for expanding automation
You can do more with automation
Building on the strategic foundation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), organizations are beginning to use these practices to automate IT
processes at every stage of the operational life cycle. Just as IaC standardizes the build, provisioning, and deployment of
infrastructure, IT teams can adopt Ops as Code and Policy as Code to codify the management, maintenance, and governance of
systems after they are deployed.
Learn how to extend IaC into Day 2
How can Red Hat help?
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is an end-to-end automation solution that helps enterprises configure systems, deploy
software, and orchestrate advanced workflows across teams and IT environments—from datacenters, across clouds, to edge
locations.
Ansible Automation Platform includes all the tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, including an event-driven
solution, analytics, content tools, and playbooks. It allows your teams to centralize and control your IT infrastructure with a visual
dashboard, role-based access control, and other features that will help reduce operational complexity.
With a Red Hat subscription, you get certified content from our robust partner ecosystem, access to hosted management
services, and life cycle technical support that allows your teams to create, manage, and scale automation across your
organization. And you’ll get expert knowledge gained from our success with thousands of customers.
See how Red Hat makes automation easy
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11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
Technology is the easy part. Culture
is much harder.
Automation can help IT teams focus on innovating and
creating value. But what does it take to actually reach
that finish line? And how does it affect the way teams
actually work? Season 2 of the Code Comments podcast
tries to find out.
Check it out
Keep reading
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Learning Ansible basics
Ansible automates IT processes like provisioning and configuration management. Learn the basics of Ansible with this introduction to
key concepts.
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What is an Ansible Playbook?
An Ansible Playbook is a blueprint of automation tasks, which are IT actions executed with limited manual effort across an inventory of
IT solutions.
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Why choose Red Hat for automation?
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform includes all the tools needed to share automation across teams and implement enterprise-wide
automation.
Read more
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11/24/24, 6:54 AM Understanding automation
More about automation
Products Related articles Resources Training
Engagements with our strategic advisers who take a big-
A unified solution that combines the security, features, picture view of your organization, analyze your challenges,
integrations, and flexibility needed to scale automation and help you overcome them with comprehensive, cost-
across domains, orchestrate essential workflows, and effective solutions.
optimize IT operations for AI adoption.
Learn more Learn more
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