This is the third part of a 7-part series on the salient features that IT professionals should look for in high-performing IT infrastructure automation and orchestration platforms for enterprise use cases.
Introduction
Navigating the ever-evolving business landscape requires enterprises to embrace adaptability and swift decision-making. One crucial element that stands out is customization in enterprise orchestration, a key enabler in addressing business-specific requirements and aligning with organizational structures and workflows. This blog is a part of our series on critical features of orchestration engines suitable for enterprises. Today, we’re delving into the role of customization and the impact of automation & orchestration “as code” has in enhancing enterprise infrastructure management. This blog follows our previous blog in the series, Harnessing the Power of Integrations in IT Infrastructure Orchestration which emphasized the critical role of seamless integrations in effective enterprise orchestration.
TLDR:
Key Benefits of Customizability for IT Infrastructure Orchestration Platforms:
Flexibility in workflow branching addressing unique business needs
Scalability and adaptability for growth
Enhanced security and compliance
Seamless integration with existing tools and technologies
Streamlined operations through automation as code
Customization: The Foundation of Success in Enterprise Orchestration
Customizability of orchestration platforms is of paramount importance for several reasons. Workflows must be customizable to follow any possible path that a traditional business or operational process may follow. This includes looping, forking, parallel tasks, concurrent tasks, gathering user input or conditional logic within workflows, and more. These powerful workflow possibilities enable enterprises to address unique business demands and align with their specific organizational structure and processes. Customization also fosters scalability and flexibility, empowering businesses to grow and evolve effortlessly by automating operations that were previously thought to be manually required. Furthermore, defining processes into automated workflows has the added benefit of strengthening security and compliance by ensuring adherence to industry standards and regulations for processes.
For IT professionals, this translates to the ability to develop bespoke solutions catering to their organization’s specific needs, making their day-to-day tasks more efficient and effective. Customization facilitates the seamless integration of new tools and technologies, ensuring a smooth transition during periods of change or growth.
Automation & Orchestration as Code
Orchestration/automation as code involves managing and provisioning orchestration configurations via code. This approach offers numerous advantages, including increased consistency, enhanced collaboration, and superior version control. Use cases include infrastructure management, automated testing, and deployment pipelines. Orchestration/automation as code enables enterprise-level customization by integrating seamlessly with existing tools and technologies.
For instance, an IT team can automate repetitive tasks by writing code, minimizing manual intervention and potential human error. Plus, automation as code supports collaboration and maintains version control, fostering a more efficient working environment. Customization acts as a force multiplier for as code operations, enabling IT Infrastructure platforms to adapt to any business or technical requirements.
Challenges and Best Practices
The most significant challenge organizations face when implementing a cross-domain orchestration platform is the growing complexity of IT decisions. Gartner reports that 65% of decisions are more complex today than they were three years ago, prompting enterprises to turn to customizability in enterprise orchestration to help mitigate these challenges. As businesses strive to transform their IT operations, they often confront increased complexity, resource constraints, and advanced skill prerequisites.
The customizability of an orchestration platform is crucial to reducing these risks, as it allows organizations to connect both old and new tools, maximizing existing resources and skill levels without requiring additional resources. This customization facilitates automation and orchestration as code, enabling IT teams to maintain blueprints that clearly capture the precise inputs and outputs driving their enterprise while enhancing the visibility of their automation processes.
Conclusion
Customizability is a crucial pillar of enterprise orchestration, enabling organizations to cater to distinct demands and conform to their unique structures and processes. By adopting orchestration/automation as code, businesses can achieve enhanced customization while capitalizing on existing tools and technologies. IT professionals in the industry should consider customization and automation as code when developing their orchestration strategy, allowing them to deliver efficient, tailor-made solutions that propel their organizations forward in today’s competitive business environment. Stay tuned for more insightful discussions in our blog series, as we continue to explore the vital aspects of orchestration engines for enterprises.
In Part IV of this series, we will look into the Importance of Ease of Adoption for Orchestration Platforms, and how Ease of Adoption gives the platform the ability to be ideal for not just developers, but also for low-code users.