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The Road to Automation in IT Operations-Part 2

Anirban Chatterjee

How do you ensure your journey to automated IT Ops is streamlined and effective, and not just a buzzword? The Road to Automation in IT Operations - Part 1 covered golden rules #1 and #2. Part 2 starts with #3.

3. Define and simplify processes - more intelligence, fewer steps

Similar to the previous point, simply automating complicated or bad processes can lead to more complication and overhead. To avoid this unfortunate outcome, you need to begin by identifying the simplest route between your available input and the goal output, free from the baggage of past decisions and tradeoffs. This fresh assessment will direct exactly what your automation will be doing for you in the future. It is here also that all the work you've done in the previous two steps — standardizing and reducing complexity — really pays off, since it allows you to simplify your processes even more.

By defining the processes that are important to your IT Ops team or workflows, you can make sure that they are simple, efficient and robust. Questions to ask yourself as you do this include:

Is this process actually making work easier and more efficient, or is it causing more problems than it solves?

Is there a step along the way that is taking too long?

What can we do to clear any bottlenecks?

Is there any part of our processes that is being unnecessarily duplicated and can be eliminated (as in the diagram below)?

What intelligence can we put up front, to minimize the number of follow-up steps required?


This stage is absolutely critical because, as automation scales up our operations, it doesn't just multiply what we have been doing well with our manual processes; it also multiplies any problems, glitches or defects. So, it's best to head them off at the pass.

4. Automate wisely - choose the tools that best fit your needs

Our last guiding principle concerns automation itself. This is where we realize the true value of the previous three principles — in short, it's where the magic happens. So, take your time to wisely select the tools you use to implement your automation.

As much as we try to keep everything simple, IT environments will alway remain noisy, complex and fast moving. The key to developing resilient automation is to implement technologies that enable us to deal with these inevitabilities as best we can — and it is here that AIOps shines.

Understand what goals you aim to achieve with your automation — and ask what the AIOps platforms you are considering can do for you from that perspective:

Can they help you with your naming conventions?

Are they suited to working both on-prem and in the cloud?

Can they easily integrate with your existing tools?

Will their communication capabilities adequately support the processes you are aiming to put in place?

Can they add the information to alerts through enrichment?

Do their AI and ML provide you with adequate flexibility and transparency to implement your tribal knowledge?

These and other questions are important to make sure you are properly equipped as you begin your automation journey. And, if you've done a good job in instrumenting, you'll get actionable data from the automated process as it runs, and over time you'll identify areas for your team to further improve and simplify its flow.

Automation is the future of IT Ops, and not just because it makes your IT Ops workflows and teams more efficient. By taking care of mundane, repetitive tasks, it also elevates the human role, freeing up staff to do the more interesting, innovative parts of their job that can really drive your business forward. Following these four guiding principles, will help you safely navigate your automation process.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

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In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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The Road to Automation in IT Operations-Part 2

Anirban Chatterjee

How do you ensure your journey to automated IT Ops is streamlined and effective, and not just a buzzword? The Road to Automation in IT Operations - Part 1 covered golden rules #1 and #2. Part 2 starts with #3.

3. Define and simplify processes - more intelligence, fewer steps

Similar to the previous point, simply automating complicated or bad processes can lead to more complication and overhead. To avoid this unfortunate outcome, you need to begin by identifying the simplest route between your available input and the goal output, free from the baggage of past decisions and tradeoffs. This fresh assessment will direct exactly what your automation will be doing for you in the future. It is here also that all the work you've done in the previous two steps — standardizing and reducing complexity — really pays off, since it allows you to simplify your processes even more.

By defining the processes that are important to your IT Ops team or workflows, you can make sure that they are simple, efficient and robust. Questions to ask yourself as you do this include:

Is this process actually making work easier and more efficient, or is it causing more problems than it solves?

Is there a step along the way that is taking too long?

What can we do to clear any bottlenecks?

Is there any part of our processes that is being unnecessarily duplicated and can be eliminated (as in the diagram below)?

What intelligence can we put up front, to minimize the number of follow-up steps required?


This stage is absolutely critical because, as automation scales up our operations, it doesn't just multiply what we have been doing well with our manual processes; it also multiplies any problems, glitches or defects. So, it's best to head them off at the pass.

4. Automate wisely - choose the tools that best fit your needs

Our last guiding principle concerns automation itself. This is where we realize the true value of the previous three principles — in short, it's where the magic happens. So, take your time to wisely select the tools you use to implement your automation.

As much as we try to keep everything simple, IT environments will alway remain noisy, complex and fast moving. The key to developing resilient automation is to implement technologies that enable us to deal with these inevitabilities as best we can — and it is here that AIOps shines.

Understand what goals you aim to achieve with your automation — and ask what the AIOps platforms you are considering can do for you from that perspective:

Can they help you with your naming conventions?

Are they suited to working both on-prem and in the cloud?

Can they easily integrate with your existing tools?

Will their communication capabilities adequately support the processes you are aiming to put in place?

Can they add the information to alerts through enrichment?

Do their AI and ML provide you with adequate flexibility and transparency to implement your tribal knowledge?

These and other questions are important to make sure you are properly equipped as you begin your automation journey. And, if you've done a good job in instrumenting, you'll get actionable data from the automated process as it runs, and over time you'll identify areas for your team to further improve and simplify its flow.

Automation is the future of IT Ops, and not just because it makes your IT Ops workflows and teams more efficient. By taking care of mundane, repetitive tasks, it also elevates the human role, freeing up staff to do the more interesting, innovative parts of their job that can really drive your business forward. Following these four guiding principles, will help you safely navigate your automation process.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...