– Colin Beasty, Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc., says:
Over the past year, IT automation became bigger, faster and more adaptable than ever before. We said the same thing in 2012 and will say the same thing again in 2014.
With the accelerating pace of business and IT’s growing demands, workload automation vendors must become increasingly nimble to address these needs. In 2014, they’ll achieve this by:
1) IT Automation Consolidation – IT organizations have traditionally taken a “siloed” approach to IT automation by implementing platform or departmental specific automation solutions. As processes become dependent on other processes and span the entire IT organization, consolidating these silos within a single solution is necessary.
2) Predictive Analytics – Workload automation solutions can proactively predict “spikes” in workload execution to provision resources; the next step is to provide additional “what-if” predictive capabilities that allow you to forecast and plan workflow execution across a variety of systems and platforms. The forecast capability, when combined with that ability to tie workflows to business deadlines/SLAs, will provide enterprises with an unparalleled and simplified way of managing workloads and resources.
3) Built for Change – In today’s business world, using scripts simply doesn’t cut it. The next generation of IT automation solutions will need to be built for change by providing Web 2.0 interfaces that allow developers to more easily build and manage complex processes that span the IT organization. These newer, more modern interfaces will allow developers to reduce their dependency on scripting and dynamically build complex workflows leveraging Google Maps.
4) Self-Service Automation –Web-based user interfaces will help drive the concept of self-service automation, in which an end user – either IT or the business – can use an IT automation solution to choose from a service catalog and initiate a process or workflow themselves – without the need to involve someone from IT operations, therefore improving IT service levels for the business.
