Stage 3

Automation

3-minute read

Because automation and orchestration make it possible to quickly and easily create multiple instances across a given environment, they’re complementary to a self-service infrastructure.

Automation improves efficiency by removing manual steps and adding consistency and reproducibility. By automating manual steps for development and deployment, you create efficient feedback loops across stakeholders, speeding up development while improving overall code quality.

Success Story

Cox Automotive

We went from potentially taking hours, days, weeks, to 15 minutes to deliver the same resources.

Jason K. Cornell, Manager, Cloud & Infrastructure Automation, Cox Automotive

Watch video

Build automation and orchestration

Build automation is a two-part change. While there’s a technology angle—with advanced deployment engines like Red Hat Ansible®—a change in process is also required. Many organizations have strict processes in place around change and risk management; without adapting those processes into more agile methodologies, it would not be possible to take advantage of automation technology.


Bringing it all together

If you want to successfully utilize automation and a self-service infrastructure together, there are any number of approaches and technologies that can help.

You can learn more about how automation works with self-service infrastructure by downloading the “Teaching an elephant to dance” e-book.

Elastic infrastructures can mean cloud (public or private), virtual machines, or containers. Automation can mean a component within the infrastructure system, or it can be an external tool, such as Red Hat CloudForms or Kubernetes with Linux® containers. There are different technological avenues, depending on your organization’s skill sets and existing infrastructure.

"There is no single architectural pattern or technology platform that works flawlessly in every single environment."

– Teaching an elephant to dance

As a first step toward automation, set a baseline for the current status of your organization to feed into your automation strategy. Steps include:

  1. 1 Defining relevant metrics
  2. 2 Visualizing or diagramming your current workflows
  3. 3 Identifying key participants at different steps

Automation and orchestration make it possible for you to make incredible improvements to efficiency, which include the rapid and iterative capabilities found in stage 4: CI/CD pipelines.

Get the e-book Continue to Stage 4

E-book author

Burr Sutter

Product Management Director, Developer Products, Red Hat

Sutter creates middleware developer solutions for Red Hat clients. He's currently an Oracle Java Champion, and he's a founder of the Atlanta chapter of the IASA. A tech educator with 20+ years of experience, Sutter has spoken at numerous industry events around the globe.

For the full story, download the free e-book

"Teaching an elephant to dance"