Why top IT executives care about IT process automation

Automation as a recommended priority:

The Gartner Group recently published the fact that run book automation (RBA), or IT process automation (ITPA) is one of the two high priorities for the next two years for IT operations management - Gartner report G00168343.

RBA tools will have a significant effect by providing consistent, measurable, better quality services at optimal cost. They will reduce the human factor (of error and latency) and associated risks by automating safe, repeatable processes, and will increase IT operations efficiencies by integrating and leveraging the IT management tools needed to support IT operations processes across IT domains.

These are some high-level realities regarding IT budgets:

* Capex is generally controlled and has been for a while.

* Opex has been growing at reasonable rate over the last few years. The reasons for this include: virtualisation, compliance, bridging disparate technology silos.

* 2009 economic pressures call for a controlling of operational expenses.

ITPA/RBA is a strategy that will help deal with this need and many others to boot.

IT silos:

The investment made by IT over the last few years has made organisations fairly efficient in each of the technology silos and have improved efficiencies in these silos.

* Event management - Triage and diagnose
* Service desk - Integrate service desks and data centre tools
* Asset/CMDB - Update CI and asset systems
* Config tools - co-ordinate tasks in change processes
* Virtual - Life cycle management
* Security - Patching and user on-boarding/password reset
* Storage - Provision, deploy, verify, manage and retire
* Server - Provision, deploy, verify, manage and retire
* Network - Provision, deploy, verify, manage and retire

Automation within the silos happens within the better tools. People, however, bridge these silos either manually or through complex scripting. This introduces latency, risk and cost and limits the scalability of the enterprise.

IT process automation benefit:

Providing the bridging across these silos through automated process allows the completion of complex tasks that have dependencies on multiple systems to deliver activities that are:

* Documented
* Consistent
* Accurate
* Integrated
* Standardised
* Efficient
* On time
* Auditable
* Staff are allocated to higher value and strategic activities
* Technical staff also move from dealing with “symptom” to dealing with “cause”

Considerations:

This is all possible across all the technology silos and disciplines, but there are some considerations that must form part of the strategy:

* Integration must be un-biased and capable of heterogeneous operation without technology ties (Gartner - Aug 14 2009: “Purchase a standalone RBA tool and use it as the primary automation engine, if process automation is what you seek.” Article - Will Vendor Initiatives Deplete the Value of RBA?

* The automation solution must have factory engineered integrations to speed time to value.

* The automation should allow simple and effective “publish and subscribe” access to data within the silos.

* The creation and editing of workflows must happen without coding or scripting.

* Workflows must be intelligent as execution along the path can change based on data in the path.

Applying these principles has resulted in IT operational costs being reduced by upwards of 25%.

Opalis Software meets these objectives and is regarded as the market leader in IT process automation software. The technology features include:

* Drag, drop and link designer
* Branching and parallel processing
* Embedded rules engine
* Out-of-the-box integration - not field integrated
* Supports all tools, no vendor lock-in
* ITIL compliant process catalogues for rapid implementation and fastest time to value
* Form-based configuration - not hard wired scripts
* Auto-detection of data, schemas, forms and field
* No programming knowledge required
* A dashboard with real-time and historical data to measure the impact of automation

Who has embarked on this and are they seeing value?

Without divulging exact details... South African companies that have already embarked on some automation initiatives include some of the larger firms in the retail, financial, food and services verticals. The global client base is growing rapidly and includes many household names of international companies.

So... why do IT execs care about IT process automation?

The reasons include:

* Strategic thinkers suggest that it is of high importance at this time.

* Economic pressures demand that budgets are reduced and that more needs to be done with less.

* ITPA/RBA reduces overtime costs dramatically.

* ITPA/RBA helps exploit the capabilities of existing tools without adding human capital costs.

* ITPA/RBA enables improved service delivery with consistent response and ability to commit to SLAs.

* ITPA/RBA enables full accountability of operations.

* ITPA/RBA enhances governance compliance.

* ITPA/RBA enables greater interoperation without an army of professional services personnel.

* ITPA/RBA enables operations managers to use their skilled staff to handle higher value work and strategic initiatives.

It is one of those technology initiatives that can revolutionise IT operations for those who take the time to investigate a little, then invest a little and then reap a fair amount.