Automation Concepts
- Danica Esteban
Background
Automation solutions have emerged as a crucial driver of success for organizations, providing several benefits such as increased efficiency, improved accuracy, and reduced operational costs. However, implementing automation solutions can be a complex process that requires careful planning to ensure successful integration with existing systems and workflows.
At IT-Conductor, we recognize the complexities of implementing automation solutions. For this reason, we take a tailored approach for each of our customers, working closely with you to fully understand your unique business needs and objectives. This partnership allows us to gain a deeper understanding of your specific requirements, allowing us to design and develop automation solutions that align with your goals as an organization, enhance your IT operations, and ultimately lead to improved performance.
IT-Conductor Automation in a Nutshell
IT-Conductor’s approach to automation is centered around the concept known as the 4Ps of Automation. This strategic framework helps us deliver tailored solutions, ensuring you reap the full benefits of automation in your operations. The 4Ps of Automation consist of the following stages:
Plan
First, we gather information about your specific requirements, establish well-defined objectives, and devise a plan to address them efficiently and effectively. This planning process may involve identifying processes for automation, prioritizing them based on potential impact and feasibility, and outlining a clear roadmap to achieve the desired outcomes.
Practice
By conducting rigorous testing and continuous refinement, we validate the functionality, accuracy, and efficiency of our automation solutions. This iterative process allows us to address any issues that may arise during the Proof of Concept (PoC) phase, ensuring a seamless transition to full-scale implementation.
Perform
At this stage, the automation PoC is implemented in the production environment, marking the beginning of the full-scale implementation. This also includes configuring systems for monitoring, allowing you to address potential issues that may arise.
Perfect
As we strive to keep you at the forefront of technological advancements, we develop and deliver regular updates to ensure our automation solutions are still relevant and effective. Staying up-to-date with new releases is important, as it enables you to identify areas where further enhancements can be made. By fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, we enable your organization to maintain a competitive advantage and adapt to the evolving demands of the market.
IT-Conductor Migration Process
Migration covers multiple aspects of automation, from the source application discovery to the deployment of the application components in the target environment. While the 4Ps of Automation can still be applied, a more fitting framework for this context is the 5Ds of IT-Conductor’s Cloud Migration Strategy.
Discover
Understanding the source application environment could mean discovering multiple related applications, how they integrate with each other, and even taking into consideration the security controls that support various application connections and end-users accessing your systems.
Application discovery in IT-Conductor leverages a multi-layer approach to automatically discover deep dependency chains among components.
Distill
The process of generating baselines is important for accurately measuring the performance and resource usage of applications before and after the migration.
The common performance baselines you need to capture are the resource utilization metrics such as CPU/Memory, storage, and network. In IT-Conductor, you can capture those metrics from the service grid.
Design
Designing a tailored migration plan should align with the organization's business objectives and requirements. This includes defining the target architecture, selecting the appropriate cloud platform, and designing the process definition, or the provisioning template to be used for the actual migration.
Develop
This stage bridges the design and the deployment of application components in your target environment. We begin by creating a deployment plan, developing the migration workflow, and testing their usability before provisioning the necessary resources in the actual migration.
Deploy
During this stage, the focus is on executing the migration plan, from provisioning resources to moving the various application components to the target environment. The deployment process also involves testing and validation of the migrated components to guarantee functionality, performance, and security in the new environment.