There are hundreds of tasks in our routine work that are repetitive and consume a lot of time. Just imagine getting rid of these tasks completely and utilising your time for more important and complex business processes. This could be done by automating these tasks. Automation is taking over the manual processes for improving business in every field, whether IT, manufacturing, assembly line automation or one of a thousand others. To keep a balance between demand and supply, every organisation is looking to remove slag from its processes and make maximum use of automation.

Not automating server tasks leads to inefficiencies and waste in various forms. Here’s a breakdown of the major types of waste:

Time Waste (Labor Costs)

• Manual Repetitive Tasks: System administrators spend hours on routine activities such as software updates, backups, and log management.
• Slow Provisioning: Manual server setup and configuration lead to long wait times before services are available.
• Delayed Issue Resolution: Troubleshooting and responding to incidents manually increases downtime.

Resource Waste (Underutilisation & Overprovisioning)

• Idle Resources: Without automation, servers may be left running at low capacity because scaling is not dynamically managed.
• Overprovisioning: Organisations often deploy more servers than needed to prevent failures, leading to unnecessary infrastructure costs.
• Inefficient Load Balancing: Manual scaling fails to optimise resource allocation across workloads.

Human Error (System Failures & Security Risks)

• Misconfigurations: Incorrect configurations can lead to security vulnerabilities, application failures, or service outages.
• Inconsistent Deployments: Manually setting up servers can introduce variations, making troubleshooting and updates difficult.
• Delayed Patch Management: Security patches applied manually increase the risk of breaches.

Financial Waste (Higher Operational Costs)

• More Staff Required: A larger team is needed to manage servers manually, increasing salary expenses.
• Downtime Costs: Unplanned outages due to slow response times can lead to lost revenue.
• Inefficient Software Licensing: Poor tracking of licenses leads to unnecessary purchases.

Data Waste (Loss & Duplication)

• Lack of Backups: Manually managed backups may be infrequent, increasing data loss risk.
• Data Duplication: Redundant storage due to improper data lifecycle management increases storage costs.

Environmental Waste (Energy Consumption)

• Higher Power Usage: Overprovisioned and idle servers consume unnecessary electricity.
• Increased Cooling Needs: Running more hardware than necessary leads to excessive cooling costs.

The digital transformation era has fully digitised businesses and processes, significantly impacting IT companies. To keep up, automation is crucial for IT and software firms to streamline operations while minimising errors.

Server automation has proved to be one of the most beneficial aspects for IT companies in recent years. The scope of server automation tasks varies from micro tasks like sending automated emails to extensive processes like provisioning entire servers.

Benefits of Server Automation

The rise of DevOps, SysOps, and Agile practices has increased the need for automation. With frequent deliverables, continuous integration, and repetitive builds and deployments, IT teams must rely heavily on server automation.

The benefits of automation include:

• Saves time by automating repetitive tasks, hence resulting in reduced costs.
• Eliminates the chances of human errors as machines never make a mistake.
• Reduced server downtime.
• Enables companies to implement standardisation across teams and routine tasks.
• Developers and system admins can focus on important tasks with higher business values instead of small, repetitive tasks.

What Processes Should Be Automated?

Deciding where to start with automation can be challenging for organisations, as it’s important to prioritise tasks effectively. There’s no simple answer, but several key factors should guide the decision. First, focus on automating tasks that provide the highest business value, avoiding outdated or irrelevant tasks.

Second, identify repetitive tasks that consume the most time and can be streamlined. Finally, consider processes that will perform better when automated compared to manual execution. These factors will help ensure a strategic and impactful approach to automation

Applications of Server Automation

“It is better to work smarter rather than harder”, server automation tasks truly reflect this quote. There are hundreds of tasks and processes which can be automated, saving a lot of time and reduced costs.

We’ve categorised automation tasks into small, medium, and large based on factors like complexity, business value, and resource consumption. Here are examples of tasks in each category:

Small Automation Tasks

Service Restart

Many tasks and services require frequent restarts, such as after updating a configuration file. These restarts can be automated with tools like Attune. Examples of such services include Apache, NTP/Linux, database, and backup services.

Cleaning Recycle Bin or Storage Space

Managing storage directories is time-consuming and provides little business value. When a user deletes something, it’s often moved to a recycle bin, which can consume significant storage space. Automating the cleanup of these bins, without IT intervention, can be done using PowerShell or bash scripts. You can set up scheduled cleanups or trigger the process based on specific events, depending on your needs.

Medium Automation Tasks

Automating Workflows

Workflow automation means defining a series of tasks and processes and removing all the manual steps that may slow the process. Server automation can help in automating the workflows and bring several benefits such as productivity, accuracy, efficiency, etc. The scope of workflow automation is not limited to IT; other departments like HR, Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc can benefit from automation software. Some of the examples are new account setup requests for the IT Team, the Employee Onboarding process for the HR team, and Expense approval in the case of Finance teams. Hundreds of such processes can be streamlined by automating workflows.

Different Triggering Processes

There are many processes that users may have access to but should not be performing, such as creating or deleting users and triggering data transfers between systems. Automating these tasks is crucial to ensure they are handled securely and consistently, reducing the risk of human error or unauthorised actions. You can also trigger tasks that were scheduled to run nightly on demand, improving efficiency and ensuring tasks are executed on time without manual intervention.

Large Automation Tasks

Server Provisioning

Provisioning is generally known as the process of setting up IT infrastructure. So when we talk specifically about server provisioning, it means the process of setting up a server to be used in a network as needed. Server provisioning includes all the steps needed to set up a server, including setting up physical hardware, setting up the operating system, installing and configuring software, and connecting it to different networks and storage.

With automation software like Attune, Terraform, Ansible, and Cloud, whole servers can be replicated onto another server.

Restoring Development Environments From Production Environments

One of the challenges companies face today is delivering software or products to customers after thorough testing. Software deployment and repetitive builds make it complex for companies to hand over products. Typically, test environments are used for deploying and testing code, but deploying the same code in production environments often leads to different issues.

The solution is to replicate production environments in test environments. ITIL processes can restore production environments to test servers, allowing non-administrators to perform the task without involving system administrators. Server automation can assist in replicating production servers to test environments.

We’ve highlighted some widely used examples of server automation. By automating tasks from simple to complex, server automation can transform your business. If you’re looking to automate your business processes, AttuneOps has you covered.