We have been using automation for decades, and it has permeated virtually all areas of business. It’s not surprising that the operation of something as complex as a data centre is being automated as well. Even though this is the realm of ones and zeros, automation brings the same benefits as in industry: speeding up all operations, eliminating routine manual activities, increasing safety, and solving shortages of specialists.
Why introduce automation into a system where processes run seemingly without human intervention? A layman may think that as long as everything is running smoothly, data centres do not require manual interventions and the human factor usually comes into play only in the event of a crisis, incident, or failure.
However, the philosophy and architecture of today’s IT world has changed so much in recent years that it’s almost impossible to do without automation. This is due to the cloud, the use of SaaS services, and, above all, new approaches to the development and deployment of omnipresent applications. Any company that is serious about digitalization must implement automated processes because it simply won’t succeed in business with the old infrastructure.
Data centres are automated by software that provides centralized access to the configuration of most resources. This lets these technologies and resources be controlled and managed easily, and often without the knowledge of all the technical details. Accessing the required services is much easier and faster. Unlike in the past, when new application request handling typically took days to weeks, now the same task is likely to take just a few minutes.
Companies are most often “forced” to use automation tools when they transition to the cloud or hybrid environments, want to quickly develop and deploy applications, or need to speed up the implementation of new environments and reduce dependence on human resources.
The time when applications were developed and tested over a period of weeks, or even months, is irretrievably gone. Today’s applications are built from many smaller parts (microservices), each of which can be independently changed or upgraded. In addition, development, testing, and deployment require an automated infrastructure that allows for rapid changes and modifications.
Another common scenario when automation is required is a company’s transition to the cloud, or, even more often, to a hybrid environment combining the cloud and an on-premise infrastructure. While clouds are automation ready, your own data centre environment requires automation and then these two environments need to be interconnected.
Finally, the deployment of automation is also motivated by the desire to accelerate the implementation of new environments and resolve human resource shortages. The shortage of top IT experts is a widespread phenomenon, so strategically it is useful for data centres to reduce their dependency on staff leaving the company or making mistakes.
Soitron approaches automation by building automation platforms which allow automation procedures to be defined for any given datacentre environment (cloud, hybrid, or on-premise). This is actually a principle that is like the one used to create source code for applications. Rewriting the entire infrastructure into a code (Infrastructure as Code) brings many advantages over manually creating the environment.
When the infrastructure is defined by scripts, the same environment is recreated each time it is deployed. This approach is most beneficial when the customer wants to centrally manage their environment and dynamically change individual application environments. With scripts it is easy to make changes across the entire infrastructure. Let’s say a company determines that all its databases should be backed up ten times a day and that each database can be accessed by predefined administrators. Then they can set up a new branch and the conditions change. In this case, the company can simply use scripts to increase the number of daily backups or add more administrators as necessary.
Another advantage of automation is the documentation. The environment is defined by code, which makes it easy to see what is deployed and how everything is configured. The deployment can be replicated at any time (serving as an infrastructure backup) such as in the case of a failure or when you need to create a parallel testing environment.
“Documentation also solves the problem of staff substitutability or dependency because the moment you have a code-defined infrastructure, a much wider range of people can work with it rather than a single IT engineer who happens to remember how the system was originally setup,” explains Zbyszek Lugsch, a business development director at Soitron.
An environment standardized by scripts allows other people to work with such an environment and enter machine- or application-specific parameters. Scripting also allows the same security standards to be applied across the system, including when installing new servers.
To a large extent, data centre automation is always a unique project, as every company uses slightly different technologies and is at a different stage of automation deployment. The course of action is defined by the company’s intention, such as the need to create a suitable environment for developers or the desire to convert an on-premise centre to a hybrid architecture. One of the early steps is a proposal for replacement or extension of the data centre’s existing functions, components, or layers, followed by the implementation of the automation platform and the creation of scripts. The actual deployment takes place by gradually migrating existing systems to the new environment until the “old” environment can be shut down.
Starting to work in an environment that enables rapid application development and deployment will also reduce staffing requirements and offer superior security.
A #Cisco ExpertTip by Martin Divis, a systems engineer at Cisco: Deploy ICO
One of the most comprehensive automation tools is Cisco’s Intersight Cloud Orchestrator (ICO). ICO is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that allows managing a wide range of technologies such as servers, network devices, data storage, and more across your entire enterprise infrastructure.
The main advantage of ICO is its multi-domain and multi-vendor approach, which allows the tool to be used regardless of the current implementation. ICO includes an extensive library of predefined tasks that can be deployed for recurring tasks or processes in managed infrastructures. ICO works in a low code/no code design and allows drag-and-drop task setup and running. It is designed with a maximum emphasis on ease of use, making automation operations accessible to a wide range of IT team members.
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