Cloud Automation

Cloud automation can apply to a wide variety of workflows and tasks. We’ve outlined key use cases below.

Infrastructure provisioning

Probably the most obvious example of cloud automation is the use of cloud automation tools for infrastructure provisioning. When you need to set up a collection of virtual servers, for example, it would take a long time to configure each one individually. Cloud automation tools allow you to perform this task automatically by creating templates that define how each virtual server should be configured. The tools then apply the configurations for you.

Identity provisioning and management

In large-scale cloud environments, a single company may have hundreds of different users, each requiring a different level of access to the various resources in the cloud. Setting up all of these access policies by hand would be a monumental task. Updating them as business needs change and users come and go from the organization would be harder still. Using cloud automation, identity management becomes much more efficient. You can use predefined Identity and Access Management (IAM) templates to set up user roles within your cloud environment.

Application deployment

Application deployment, which refers to the process of moving a new application release or version from the environment where it was built and tested into the one where it will run in production, can be a time-consuming task if performed by hand.

Monitoring and remediation

Once you have provisioned your cloud infrastructure, configured user credentials, and deployed workloads, you need to monitor them and respond to incidents that may impact application performance. This is another juncture at which automation is very valuable.