Automation is more than a convenience in the modern IT space - it is a necessity. Organizations cannot reasonably allocate manual resources to the processing and management of all the data and tasks that the IT teams of today must oversee. In addition to the tried-and-true IT automation technologies of yesteryear, though, there are a few key technologies that are defining the future of IT automation.
Key Takeaways:
- Artificial intelligence (AI), along with machine learning (ML), is at the core of many automation endeavors for its ability to automate increasingly sophisticated tasks.
- Software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools comprise another technology defining the future of automation for their ability to put automation in the hands of any business of any size.
- As more and more organizations move to the cloud, cloud computing plays a more integral role in powering automation for both operations maintaining the cloud and those taking place inside it.
What Are IT Automation Technologies?
IT automation technologies are those that reduce the need for human involvement in various tasks throughout the IT pipeline. These can include tasks related to development, monitoring, customer service, and more.
Businesses benefit from the adoption of automation in that it frees creative talent from the constraints of repetitive tasks so that they can focus on more innovative projects. Automation also increases performance as well as cost-efficiency and even improves the customer experience in many cases.
Though the promise of reaping these benefits of automation is tempting, there are challenges that stand in the way of some organizations making a full commitment to the underlying technology. Enterprise decision-makers might struggle to determine which processes to automate, for example, and compatibility issues may arise between new automation technologies and legacy infrastructure systems.
Despite the challenges, the growth of certain IT automation technologies will fuel substantial breakthroughs in the field. These three technologies in particular stand poised to define the very future of IT automation.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence comes hand-in-hand with machine learning, both of which are at the very core of modern IT automation. With AI and ML, automation can achieve more than simply repeating tasks based on a static set of parameters.
AI and ML technologies can, by design, recognize patterns and “learn” from those patterns. The result is that the AI will become able to make sophisticated decisions in complicated situations even without human input.
With AI and ML in place, the future of IT automation is one in which increasingly complex tasks will cease to require human intervention. Marketing, customer support, and even certain project management tasks are among the processes that the AI of today can automate.
A report from Precedence Research places the estimated value of the global AI market at $119.78 billion as of 2022, with a projected growth to $1,597.1 billion by 2030. These figures clearly illustrate the place of AI at the forefront of IT automation.
Software-as-a-Service
IT automation technologies may remain out of reach for many enterprises of various sizes and might continue to be inaccessible for years to come due to the upfront costs and expertise needed to implement these at the infrastructure level. The SaaS approach can help companies overcome this obstacle of accessibility.
SaaS solutions contribute to defining the future of IT automation due largely to how prolific and indispensable they are. Many SaaS tools exist to help small enterprises automate the sales process, marketing, and customer service tasks among other crucial processes as well.
The quality and usefulness of SaaS tools on the market are improving with each passing year. Though some organizations may prefer to develop and implement a more customized solution, the future will likely bring the option of acquiring any necessary IT automation technologies as a service-based product.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the process of completing compute tasks by consuming IT resources on an on-demand basis over a network. There is a strong relationship between cloud computing and automation, such as in the necessity for an automated process to determine the exact amount of resources needed from the cloud.
Cloud automation, in general, refers to the wide range of tasks that can and should undergo automation in the cloud. These are repetitive or laborious tasks that are not reasonable for an IT team to complete manually, such as:
- Cloud resource management
- Virtual Machine (VM) cluster setup
- Virtual network creation
- Cloud workload deployment
- Performance and availability monitoring
There is a need for a cloud platform that inherently provides or accommodates IT automation technologies. Freedom in the cloud is about more than just automation, though, so the right platform should be one that also enables self-service, security visibility, and unified control of all operations.
The Future of IT Automation Technologies With Nutanix
Just as certain technologies define the future of IT automation, platforms can also empower an organization’s future-proof, cloud native operations and all the automation that comes with them. With the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) on the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP), it is possible to achieve a higher level of innovative freedom through self-service, governance, and of course automation.
AI, SaaS, and cloud computing all promise to play distinct roles in defining the future of IT automation, but these technologies are not mutually exclusive. Using various methods together on the Nutanix platform makes for a comprehensive cloud environment that can deliver state-of-the-art automation.
IT automation technologies are important not only because of the implication that productivity and cost-efficiency will improve but also because talented individuals at every level of the enterprise can enjoy greater freedom. With this freedom comes new opportunities to innovate and solve the new problems of tomorrow.
Learn more about DevOps principles empowered by automation as well as uses for automation in revenue and accounting.
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