During VMworld 2013 I presented together with Thomas Corfmat a session entitled “Automating the Software Defined Datacenter, How do I get started?” this was meant as a introduction on how someone who was interested in automation could start with VMware products and what they could achieve.

One of the first things we mentioned in this session is that there is no one size fits all, there isn’t one tick box that you can click and then suddenly “enable automation”, this is a common misconception by the C-Level staff of many organizations as they see automation in a slide deck and want some of it! Automation is actually a combination of products, workflows and scripts created to give you the specific results you need.

What areas of Automation are there?

We wanted to give people an overview of automation as we see it, this may not be a complete list of automation areas but the below was an overview of automation areas that we had seen and spoken to VMware customers about.

What products COULD you use?

After we put this together Thomas and I started to think about what VMware products could you use to automate these areas, as you know, there is never a one size fits all with automation, it can often depend on skill sets, operating systems, ease of use, licensing and other factors. What we wanted to do was first list all of the products that COULD be used to automate these areas.

What products are recommended?

We then wanted to narrow this list down and think about what products are recommended, and by this we mean if we were starting fresh, which products have been created to solve a certain function or area of automation. Remember if you use something different that’s fine, these are just guidelines for people starting out!

Some VMware products were written with various automation tasks in mind, if they have been pre-written to perform this task then that’s probably a good place to start.

Conclusion

If you are already achieving automation then that’s great, keep going, automate all the tasks that can be, this will make your life easier and your business save money. Get rid of all the mundane tasks in your life and move onto bigger and better work. If you are looking to start with automation then take a look at Thomas and my information in this post and find out more about the applications above, they will be a shortcut to achieve automation and will help make your life easier.

Keep an eye on this blog as next up I will show some automation tips from our session.

-Alan

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