The Future of IT Automation

IT services will soon be regarded as strategic competitive assets. While most people focus on provision and availability, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters most: the underlying processes. It is the quality of these processes that ultimately determines the success of the resulting services.

Digital transformation is currently an issue for every level of the corporate hierarchy – from IT managers to CIOs. As is becoming increasingly obvious, digital services constitute a growing proportion of the products delivered to end users. Within a short space of time, IT has evolved from its original supporting role to become a central element in service provision. That applies across many different sectors.

When delivering services, providers must do so quickly, cost-efficiently, and with the quality that users demand. Only then is it possible to keep pace with the continuous growth in customer expectations. But what impact will this fundamental change have on service provision?

IT automation — the three main ingredients

IT services are becoming increasingly complex. On the one hand, customers demand a wide range of customization and configuration options; on the other, providers require a multitude of resources in order to deliver their services. This complexity is further exacerbated by the use of hybrid infrastructures.

In order to keep pace with the market, it is now essential that providers automate their service delivery processes. The following three components are crucial to implementation of this strategy:

  1. Software-managed infrastructure. Speed is the key to successful IT. In order to respond quickly, providers need specialized software that allows them to virtualize resources and maximize productivity.
  2. Central data repository. When using a diverse range of applications, it’s essential to maintain a proper overview of the system landscape. In particular, both IT managers and service managers need to be able to identify which services they can deliver at any time. They also need reliable data for planning purposes, allowing them to be more proactive, less reactive, and ultimately better prepared for future customer needs.
  3. Workflow systems. Almost all business processes require some degree of manual input or approval. Using workflow systems to support these processes not only improves overall process efficiency, it also reduces the susceptibility to error. In addition, the use of automatic notifications helps to orchestrate processes and thus avoid or bring down costs over the longer term.

Building an integrated system landscape

The best way to implement this strategic approach is with a fully integrated system landscape. FNT Command serves as the central repository, with multiple standard interfaces to external applications, e.g., SCCM and vCenter, while FNT ProcessEngine is responsible for automating and orchestrating recurring IT processes.

“In contrast to conventional BPM systems, the integration of FNT ProcessEngine and FNT Command has the crucial advantage of providing all function calls in the form of predefined task modules,”

explains Camuran Veli, Product Manager at FNT.

“This means users can model and edit processes without any programming effort whatsoever – a huge step forward that increases flexibility in all types of process management and significantly reduces the time required for customization.”

In addition to its standard integration with FNT Command as a management system – a unique feature in the market – FNT ProcessEngine shares the ability of all workflow engines to integrate with other systems. It also features predefined interfaces for easier connection with external applications. The web-based user interface ensures platform independence, enabling users to log in and work normally on any device from any location in the world.

Other features include role-based access with a personal inbox, integrated business activity dashboards, and the ability to create wizards for FNT Command – all of which help with the automation of recurring business processes and enable companies to successfully master digital transformation.