Avoid Automation Mistakes in the CloudPart 1 of the “Tackle IT Trouble” Webinar Series

Today’s speakersCameron Fuller, MVP

Solution Director @ Catapult Systems

@CFullerMVP

Donnie Taylor, MVP

IT Architect

@Donnie_Taylor

AgendaUsing the wrong tool for the job

Who cares about process?

Not planning for the future

Skipping ROI

Ineffective Logging, alerts & dashboarding

Resistance to automation

44

How far along are you on your business process automations?

• What are business process automations?

• We’ve started

• Been there, done that, got the t-shirt

Poll slide

55

Why is Cameron talking about Automation instead of Monitoring?

I moved to Catapult’s “Launch” automation team just over 3 years

ago

We are currently processing almost 1.5 million automations a year

for our customers via Launch

I’ve learned from making a lot of mistakes and have some

incredibly talented colleagues that I drew this material from

Respond Orchestrate

Automation in Azurekey Takeaways

Deliver repeatable and consistent

infrastructure as code.

Create event-based automation to

diagnose and resolve issues.

Orchestrate your automation across

Azure and 3rd party systems.

API

Deploy

Logic AppsFunctionsResource ManagerPolicyBlueprintsDeployment

Manager

DevOps DSC Automation Flow

77

• Deploy:

• Azure Resource Manager

• Desired State Configuration

• Deployment Manager

• Azure Devops Pipelines

• Azure Policy

• Azure BluePrints

What Microsoft tools are available for automation? It depends on what you want to do…

• Respond:

• Azure Automation

• Azure Functions

• Azure Event Grid

• Azure Alerts

• Azure Updates

• Orchestrate & Integrate

• Logic Apps

• Azure DevOps

• Flow & PowerApps

88

1. If you need to automate, use Azure tools for automation

2. If you can’t use those tools, use SMA

3. If you can’t use SMA, use Orchestrator but write everything in PowerShell for re-use

What, what about Orchestrator?

99

When to use each of these tools for automation?

1010

• The hammer isn’t always the right tool

• Don’t assume that just because you use one tool that it’s the right one for use cases

• Know which tools are in your toolbox

• Identify what you are trying to do first and does it fit into Deploy, Respond, Orchestrate or Integrate?

• Use the right tool for the job

• Use native Azure services as much as possible: If Microsoft built a tool to do something, don’t re-invent the wheel

• IE: You could use PowerShell to provision Azure resources, but why would you?

• Everything in the cloud changes, including automation

• There are exceptions

• Sometimes the built-in tools are not sufficient. In those cases use Azure Automation or Azure Functions for a temporary investment.

Best practice lessons for which tools to use

Demo

Flow vs. Logic Apps

1212

Automating a bad process

• What is the process attempting to accomplish?

• Break the goal down into smaller chunks

• Look at the steps of the process (the smaller chunks) & see how you can automate them

Don’t do it?

Pick smaller tasks which will be reusable regardless of the final

process

When coding, build tools, not scripts

If you have to do it,

automate from the

bottom-up

1313

Not understanding the full process

Why are you performing the task that you are performing?

How does this task fit into the overall process flow?

Understand the full process flow before automating anything.

1414

• Automate for the 80th

percent of conditions at the start: Build what you need to get most of the way there.

• Handle the strange one-offs manually for now.

Start simple

1515

Avoid improper time management or non-effective planning

Automation projects often start from existing processes, so understand those processes completely.

Automate as a project so that resources can be dedicated to it.

Identify someone who can work with the various subject matter experts (SME’s) to understand the entire process and to validate that automation produces the required results.

1616

• Do NOT assume that automation will be finished at go-live.

• Automation requires maintenance & enhancement – forever.

• Someone who knows the automation needs to own the automation.

• Identify common failures or manual steps to increase this percentage over time. The goal is to always push up the success percentage and functionality of the automation.

Planning for the future

1717

• Best ROI is for tasks which recur frequently, take lots of manual time, and do not take that much time to automate

• Know your ROI before you automate (especially for automation projects)

• Automation Cost = Time & Resources for Development + (((Cost of Resources) + (Maintenance)) * (Executions))

• Manual Cost = (Time & Resources for Execution) * (Executions)

• ROI = Manual Cost – Automation Cost

• ROI continues to grow over time, such as:

• Month 1 = $1,000 - $2,021 = -$1,021

• Month 2 = $2,000 - $2,042 = -$42

• Month 3 = $3,000 - $2,063 = $937

• Month 6 = $6,000 - $2,126 = $3,874

• Month 12 = $12,000 - $2,252 = $9,748

Is it worth automating?

1818

How much do automation tools cost in Azure?It depends on how much you use them…

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/

1919

Logging/Monitoring

• You have to monitor every tool you use and assume it will break

• Log everything to Log Analytics (or Azure Data Explorer, or Event Grid)

• If you are an MSP write to the customer tenant and your own tenant

• Transparency and effective auditing is accomplished through this approach

• You can write logs to multiple logging solutions which span different regions

2020

Alerting & Dashboards

• Alerting:

• Use Azure Monitor for your alerting

• Enhance via Azure Automation or Logic Apps if that is not sufficient

• Dashboards:

• Use Azure Dashboards or Grafana to visualize automation health and performance

2121

What are your biggest concerns with business process automation in the cloud?

• We would need to look at our business to see what makes sense

• Our organization does not use the cloud

• We have concerns on security and/or data leakage

• No concerns

Poll slide

Demo

Logging, Alerts, Dashboards

2323

• Fear of automaton is a real threat

• Automation projects often run by people performing the existing process

• Automation can be a low priority for them

• Or worse, can be seen as a threat to their job

• I have never seen someone lose their job to automation, but I have seen people grow their careers through automation.

• If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

Overcoming resistance to automation

2424

• Know what tools are available for automation

• Use the right tool for the right job

• Understand the process and don’t automate bad processes

• Start simple and enhance the automation over time

• Plan for the future

• Know your ROI

• Build with effective logging, alerting & dashboards out of the gate

Summary

Q&A