Ten Recommended Automation and Orchestration Tools

Automation and orchestration network tools can perform tasks faster and more accurately than managers.

Automating IT processes is a selling point in itself: Not only is automating tasks cheaper than having workers perform repetitive activities, it’s also more efficient and predictable.

While automation and orchestration tools can be developed with enterprise employees, this can be challenging and may require the use of commercial software tools if automation technology is ultimately required to be adopted at scale.

Some tasks are easier to automate than others, such as managing IT systems, configuring physical and virtual machines, managing server configurations, and identifying policy deviations. Many IT systems now have features that make them more Easily automated without seeking to adopt a commercial platform.

Additionally, extensive system automation has become possible over the past decade. For example, Windows PowerShell and Python are relatively easy to learn, allowing administrators to start using automation and orchestration tools.

However, for more complex automation challenges, acquiring the technical capabilities to build automation and an understanding of the automation process can be barriers to DIY.

For many enterprises, taking the next step requires orchestrating the complex process of executing automated tasks, defining how and when they are executed, monitoring task execution performance, and developing more advanced workflow-based decision trees. Advanced automated processes.

Orchestration can also help support the change management process, as changes can be applied to test groups, go through peer review, be applied broadly, and even be rolled back if necessary. Changes applied through orchestration can also be easily audited and reported to meet business or regulatory requirements.

Every business is different, with a varying mix of security concerns, workloads, and visibility needs, all of which impact the requirements for an appropriate automation and orchestration platform. What tools are available? What value can they bring to the business? Here are 10 top automation and orchestration tools that can help businesses find the right product.

1. ActiveBatch

ActiveBatch is a tool that has had enough time to develop and mature. Notable among its current feature set are the wide range of integrations and low-code capabilities designed to help non-developers gain value despite the steep learning curve. In addition to enabling automation through integration with popular applications and services, ActiveBatch supports managing scheduled script executions, even scripts triggered by system events, file changes, record changes in the database, or incoming emails. It can combine change management and revision tracking with comprehensive audit logging of changes to automated tasks and task execution.

2. Ansible

As RedHat's automation suite, Ansible supports various platforms, including Windows environments, not just the Linux community. A big part of the Ansible platform is enabling scale in terms of the systems it manages and the complexity of designing and managing automated workflows. Ansible encompasses modern application stacks, including container-based infrastructure management. It leverages container platforms to host container-based execution environments as a starting point for automated tasks, enabling rapid deployment, scalability, and instant deployment. Ansible facilitates more complex automated deployments by enabling the construction of automated content collections that combine multiple dependent automation sets into a collection that can be deployed as a single task.

3, BMC

BMC TrueSightOrchestration is an IT process automation suite that provides a vast library of pre-built workflows and scripts to quickly start automated processes, as well as facilitate integration with existing IT systems Integrated application adapter. BMC also provides a graphical workflow designer to help visualize processes and optimize logic-based decision points and system interactions. It can be deployed using container-based infrastructure, enabling resiliency and flexibility. TrueSight also integrates with existing help desk applications to help the help desk quickly resolve common issues or provide self-service capabilities to end users.

4. Chef

Chef can provide tools for automated management of core infrastructure and applications. It displays an enterprise's system configuration details on a dashboard, allowing analysis of weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and inconsistencies in the infrastructure. This broad perspective enables more effective configuration management and automation. Chef also supports compliance verification using industry-standard frameworks and can provide a simplified path to compliance. Chef supports collaboration between teams and access control using standards such as LDAP and SAML that can be used to keep systems running efficiently.

5. Microfocus

Microfocus Operations Orchestration provides a graphical workflow designer, an analytics dashboard for visualizing compliance and process execution, and an analytics dashboard for simplifying interaction with common platforms and applications. plug-in library. It also provides Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate human-machine interactions such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, which is helpful for systems that do not support APIs or command line interfaces. MicroFocus also includes the development of automated tasks based on CloudSlang code. CloudSlang is an open source project that provides community support to derive value from other users' experiences.

6. Microsoft System Center

Microsoft SystemCenter includes SystemCenter Orchestrator, an enterprise-class automation platform built for managing on-premises facilities or private cloud resources. One of its advantages is that System Center is widely used in enterprise data centers, so it's likely that many enterprises already have this option. System Center's popularity makes it attractive to software vendors looking to add value to their products by making System Center plug-and-play with management tools. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft solutions both on-premises and in the cloud.

7. Puppet

Puppet’s business is built around automation, and its feature list shows its maturity in meeting customer needs at scale. It brings visibility into security and compliance and deviations from known good states. Puppet is also extensible, offering the PuppetForge marketplace for modules developed by Puppet, its partners, and end users. Modules can be searched by operating system, Puppet version, or the level of support provided by Puppet. The company also offers PuppetComply, a tool set focused on compliance, and Puppet Relay, a tool focused on cloud computing resources.

8, Resolve

ResolveActions provide automated management, from IT service management and first-level help desk requests to enabling cloud computing operations (such as virtual machine configuration) to initiating remediation based on observable system events step. It offers out-of-the-box integrations with third-party products and pre-built automations that produce useful results immediately. Resolve Insights automatically discovers service and application relationships to build dependency graphs and more quickly identify and measure how proposed changes will impact operations and service delivery.

9. Terraform

Terraform can automate infrastructure building in on-premises or cloud platform environments, but can also run independently or in conjunction with other automation solutions. Terraform can be used to manage systems, monitor compliance, or manage the configuration of network components such as load balancers and firewalls.

10. VMware vRealize Automation

One of the newer products in the VMware data center tools catalog is VMware v Realize Automation, which provides extensive support for the automation of VMware-based infrastructure components. When combined with other VMWare platforms, it can support self-service management of hybrid cloud components, automatic configuration of container-based applications, and automation of virtual networks.

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