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The biggest misconception about IT Process Automation (ITPA) is that it’s
incredibly expensive and complex. This eBook dispels that notion and
answers many of the common questions, such as:
• How to begin the automation?
• Which processes should be automated?
• How to calculate ROI?
• How to evaluate ITPA tools?
• What are the key success factors?
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What is IT Process Automation (ITPA)? 4
Why IT Process Automation ? 5
Two customer success stories 6
Automation categories 9
Most important areas to automate 10
Scripting or ITPA tools? 11
Planning for IT Process Automation 12
Visually modeling your processes 13
Calculating ROI 14
How to evaluate ITPA tools 15
Summary – ingredients for success 16
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IT Process Automation (ITPA), also known as Run Book Automation (RBA) is designed to automate system
and network operational processes, while interacting with infrastructure elements such as applications,
databases and hardware.
Used within data centers and Network Operation Centers (NOCs), ITPA is driven by the need for higher IT
operational efficiency , better provisioning of IT services and reduction of Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).
ITPA also helps optimize the delivery and management of cloud computing and virtualized data centers.
Automation addresses a wide range of issues, including :
• ITIL incidents
• Cloud management
• App and service provisioning
• Problem remediation
• Maintenance and task automation
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“ IT Process Automation delivers quantifiable,
bottom-line results.
Free up resources by allowing your staff to focus on strategic IT initiatives instead of spending time on repetitive, time-consuming tasks.
Reduce resolution time by 50-90% with faster response to critical IT events, particularly during off-duty hours.
Improve service quality up to 70% by taking actions automatically in response to user requests.
Achieve 100% compliance to regulatory requirements with automatic documentation and events trace-back.
Enforce IT standards by triggering pre-defined procedures and escalations.
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IT Process Automation is no
longer an add-on technology…
it is quickly becoming the way
IT must look to manage its
infrastructure.
“
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At the end of the day, what matters the most is the bottom
line. So, what type of benefits can you expect to gain with
IT Process Automation?
Here are two great examples that demonstrate how two
different IT groups automated their processes and the
change they have experienced.
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Company: Large banking group with over 250 branches, 3,000+ servers, and hundreds of
mission-critical online applications.
Challenge: Manual processes consumed significant IT time. Slow response to critical events
during off-duty hours & weekends.
Results: Automated processes integrated with multiple IT systems (Patrol, Siebel, MQ, TSM,
Telephony..).
430 hours of manual work eliminated on a monthly basis,
Response time to critical system failures reduced from 15 minutes to seconds .
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Company: Leading insurance, pension, and financial services group.
Challenge: Frequent failures of financial web portal serving thousands of agents.
Slow recovery leading to lost of business.
Results: Automated alerts, escalations and incident ownership.
Portal recovery time cut by 90%.
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Process candidates for automation can be roughly
categorized into:
Operational processes (also called data center
processes), which have a stronger focus on
operational IT systems and procedures – for example,
backup & recovery, access management, etc.
Business processes, which span across systems and
involve user activities.
The line between these two types of processes is not
clear cut. In many cases a process may be both
operational and business oriented. The
InformationWeek survey results seem to indicate that
the majority of processes automated are either
Operational or processes that are combined.
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A combination of
operational &
business processes
Business &
customer processes
Operational
& data center
processes
Don’t
know
Source: InformationWeek 2011 IT Process Automation Survey
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Source: InformationWeek 2011 IT Process Automation Survey
The InformationWeek survey asked
users what they thought were the
most important areas for
automation (on a scale of 1 to 5).
Unlike the respondents, the
researchers identified other “key win
areas” that could provide more
value.
These include:
• Change management
• Configuration management
• Provisioning
• Routine maintenance
• Identity & access management
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“
Many IT organizations use scripting to automate tasks. This may work well for
well-defined tasks, such as provisioning a server. Yet scripting has its drawbacks,
particularly for more complex IT workflows that cross processes and domains.
With scripting, the lack of built-in integration with IT management and
orchestration systems reduces your flexibility and ability to manage the
processes end-to-end – from triggering or scheduling and up to closing tickets.
Another problem with scripting is your ability to keep an audit trail, review and
analyze events.
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“
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As IT processes change and scripts need to be modified, your simple home-
grown scripts can become a full-time programming commitment.
You should also consider the issue of knowledge management and your
ability to maintain and keep scripts updated over time, as employees with
operational knowledge leave.
Watch the video - How to Turbocharge
Scripting with IT Process Automation
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Before you jump into evaluating ITPA tools, it is well worth your time to plan ahead.
Define KPIs for success. Define what would be your baseline metrics for success: Hours
saved? Number of processes automated? A service response metric?
Know your processes. Conduct a thorough system/process analysis where you
document your existing processes and systems, including interfaces, integration points,
and input & output formats. It may seem a waste of time (you already know everything
about your processes), but automation needs to handle many semiformal steps that
humans perform.
Decide which processes to automate. You don’t have to automate all your IT
processes. Identify ‘quick wins’ you can start with – processes that will deliver the most
value if automated and that will require a small effort to automate. See Calculating ROI.
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By visually modeling a process you are able to
focus on its logical elements and flow, before
getting wrapped up in technical details.
You can identify the exact sequence of steps,
define inputs and outputs, logic branching, and
think about any human decision points that
need to be incorporated within the flow.
Check the top 10 IT Processes
that our customers automate
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Return on investment for ITPA can be addressed at two levels – on the macro level, the total
ROI for implementing ITPA ( tool, training etc.), and on the micro level, calculating the ROI
for each individual process you automate.
ITPA Total ROI
On the tools side, you should take into account both tool costs as well as the effort
required to integrate the tool into your environment and develop workflows. Some ITPA
capabilities are embedded inside larger suites, which require heavier costs, whereas other
vendors provide dedicated and usually cheaper tools.
To evaluate the cost of generating automated workflows, you should consider several
functional capabilities, such as a visual workflow designer that eliminates the need for
scripting, the provision of templates with ‘pre-canned’ content and the integration with
external systems.
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Bottom line – you should not skip a POC and try to get from vendors a feel for the
duration & cost of automating your specific processes.
Though it’s difficult to generalize, the ROI on an ITPA solution should not exceed 9 months.
Individual Process ROI
To evaluate the ROI of an individual process, begin with calculating the current time of the
manual task. For example, a task that takes one hour of an administrator’s time, one hour
of a manager, and is performed twice a week, can be evaluated at 16 monthly hours. If it
will take 8 hours to automate the task, then your ROI for that process will be two weeks.
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1 Integration points. Verify that the tool can
easily have touch points and triggers with your
data center systems, including different OS, legacy
systems, help desk, management systems, etc.
2 Deployment effort. Evaluate how much time
and effort will be required for deployment – setup,
configuration, etc.
3 Required skill set. What is the estimated
learning curve for generating workflows
independently, on your own? Is scripting required?
4 Out-of-the-box functionality. Does the tool
provide ‘pre-canned’ templates for various tasks,
which can easily be tailored to fit your
environment and process?
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5 Human intervention. Even the simplest
automated processes will require human decision.
Can you embed decision-making logic in workflows
for remote automatic decisions on process
execution?
6 Scheduling. While some automated processes
will be triggered by system events, others (such as
repetitive tasks) will need to be scheduled.
7 Regulatory compliance. Does the tool provide
tracking of events, reports and knowledge
management that can help you? comply to
regulations?
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Don’t jump into large-
scale automation
projects. Instead, aim for
quick wins - small,
targeted projects that will
deliver immediate results.
For example, repetitive
tasks such as freeing up
disk space, or other file
management operations.
Though you’ll begin with
small-scale projects, you
want to ensure you can
expand your automation
in a modular fashion and
apply automation to
processes that cross
domains (server, storage,
network), such as
proactive maintenance
tasks.
Before you get wrapped
up in technical details,
you must document your
manual processes
workflows.
which processes should
you automate?
Prepare your team
for automation. Set
roles and functions
so the IT group is
trained and ready
to adapt to new
processes and
models.
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