Mihir Shukla, founder and president of Automation Anywhere (www.automationanywhere.com), says:

Our customers tell us that analyst reports are true: IT & Operations budgets in the last 4 years have increased only 22%, while IT workloads have increased 165%. CIOs are saying “do more with less.” Automation is the often the answer.

As automation tools become more powerful, true unattended automation in the data center is accessible and possible. Automation tools used to be a small sliver of the $8 billion Business Process Management (BPM) space, but we feel as automation tools themselves become less expensive and more powerful, they are emerging as their own market that we call Business Process Automation (BPA).

BPAs are having a profound impact on data centers. For example, 40% of alerts are repetitive and can be avoided and/or solved via automation routines eliminating fire fighting, reducing cost, improving response time and customer satisfaction.

Every data center IT professional should at least explore automation tools. With the emergence of cloud computing and the explosive loads on the datacenter, automation helps you scale and keep your margins.

Customers who use Automation Anywhere in the data center report 6x gains in efficiencies. These include cost savings, reduced error rates, more easily tracked compliance and automated troubleshooting.

Once a data center manager starts to see how easy it is to automate a multitude of tasks, things start to fall in place quickly. The biggest challenge is to start realizing how much can be automated in the data center using the latest breeds of business automation tools.

Automation is a significant opportunity right now. People in data centers should look at all BPA automation tools on market today and explore how these tools can free up time. If you work in data center you could use that time in much more strategic ways.

We encourage IT and data center managers to look around. If they pick the right BPA tool, they will see a multitude of benefits.

For example:

– Look for BPA tools that can recognize the intent of a particular task and adjust accordingly when the environment changes.

– Find a tool that current and future staff will find easy to use: The best tools today offer easy drag and drop interface.

– Integration in today’s environment is critical. It is well within the grasp of leading BPA tools to orchestrate processes between ANY applications. When you have to shop around or develop your own connectors and adapters, you will be wasting time.