Overview
Infrastructure automation is the use of technology that performs tasks with reduced human assistance in order to control the hardware, software, networking components, operating system (OS), and data storage components used to deliver information technology services and solutions.
IT infrastructure
IT infrastructure are the components required to operate and manage enterprise IT environments. These components include hardware, software, networking components, operating systems (OSs), and data storage—all of which are used to deliver IT services and solutions. IT infrastructure products are available as downloadable software applications that run on top of existing IT resources—like software-defined storage—or as online solutions offered by service providers—like Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).
Automation
Automation is the use of technology to perform tasks with reduced human assistance. Automation helps you accelerate processes and scale environments, as well as build continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment (CI/CD) workflows. There are many kinds of automation, including IT automation, business automation, robotic process automation, industrial automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning.
Why automate IT infrastructure?
Most IT organizations face growing infrastructure size and complexity. With limited time and staff, IT teams often struggle to keep pace with this growth, resulting in delayed updates, patching, and resource delivery. Applying automation to common management tasks — like provisioning, configuring, deploying, and decommissioning — simplifies operations at scale, allowing you to regain control over and visibility into your infrastructure.
What IT infrastructure processes can be automated?
Configuration
Your IT environment contains a variety of hardware and software. Consistently managing all of these by hand can lead to higher maintenance costs and inability to meet strict service-level agreements (SLAs). Automation gives you predictable and repeatable processes for managing configurations across operating systems to improve consistency, speed changes, and increase uptime.
System maintenance
IT teams do not usually grow in size at the same pace as the infrastructure they manage. Teams often struggle to maintain increasing responsibilities with their existing staffing levels. Automation helps teams manage large, complex IT infrastructures with their current staff. It can free your staff from tedious, time-consuming tasks and allow them to focus on more rewarding and strategic projects.
Extend your Infrastructure as Code strategy into Day 2
Building on the strategic foundation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), organizations are beginning to use these practices to automate IT processes at every stage of the operational life cycle. Just as IaC standardizes the build, provisioning, and deployment of infrastructure, IT teams can adopt Ops as Code and Policy as Code to codify the management, maintenance, and governance of systems after they are deployed.
What companies have automated their IT infrastructure?
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina created an automated, adaptable IT environment, improving efficiency and reducing costs. In two years, they saved 70,000 work hours and more than US$850,000.
Sapphire Health automates to speed server builds, eliminate manual errors, and simplify documentation. As a result, Sapphire helps their customers streamline operations and lower costs.
Why Red Hat?
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a subscription product that includes all the tools needed to implement enterprise-wide automation, including playbooks, a visual dashboard, an event-driven solution, and analytics. You’ll get certified content from our robust partner ecosystem, access to hosted management services, life cycle technical support, and expert knowledge gained from our success with thousands of customers.
Our software development model leads to enterprise open source products that work with all other parts of your enterprise IT system. Our IT infrastructure products are designed to work across physical, virtual, and cloud environments—with solutions that work as well with one another as they do with your existing technologies and processes. And with unlimited access to the source code, everything you deploy will be highly compatible across the most popular cloud providers—like Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Want some hands-on experience?
Red Hat offers interactive labs in a preconfigured Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform environment. You can use these labs to experiment, practice, and learn how to create, manage, and scale network and IT practices efficiently—from rapid development and deployment, to simplified operations and analytics, to consistent end-to-end user experiences.