Automation is here to stay. For many years, the installation, configuration or maintenance of infrastructure deployments, whether in a cloud, local or hybrid environment, has been subject to manual and repetitive work that favored the generation of human errors, low availability of applications and a high cost for companies associated with this fact.
With the emergence of new DevOps tools and teams that allow automated tasks of creation, implementation and administration of the infrastructure, it has become an indispensable practice to ensure the proper performance of applications, increase operational efficiency at the lowest cost and ensure its useful life; therefore, let's see what it means to automate the IT infrastructure.
What is IT infrastructure automation?
IT infrastructure automation is a practice that consists of using tools and techniques that automate the configuration, implementation and maintenance of the infrastructure, including all processes related to server configuration, networking, security, scripting or monitoring of systems used to run applications and services.
Why it is important to automate IT infrastructure: Your Benefits
Infrastructure automation becomes very important for several reasons:
- Ensures consistency and reliability of systems: It is a fact that automated tasks register fewer human errors and are therefore more efficient.
- Increased IT team efficiency: Reducing the time spent completing unnecessary or repetitive tasks allows team members to focus their attention on other more relevant tasks or invest their resources in innovative and strategic work.
- Enhanced security: Automating all configuration, installation and maintenance processes promotes compliance, standardization and enforcement of security policies at every stage.
5 Steps to Automated IT Infrastructure Deployment
The main steps in implementing infrastructure automation are:
- Identifying recurring tasks that can be automated.
- Choosing which tools are best suited to the needs of the project (Ansible, Puppet, Terraform; PowerShell DSC...)
- Writing automation scripts (Python or Bash).
- Review and validation of scripts
- Implementation execution
Azure for IT infrastructure automation
Depending on each type of enforque you work with in Azure, you can have several tools adapted to infrastructure automation applied to Linux Virtual Machines, Windows, flexible and uniform scaling:
- For the configuration of virtual machines: We include some of the best known as Ansible, Chef, Puppet. for Linux virtual machines we find PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Azure custom script extension for all Azure virtual machines.
- For infrastructure management configuration: there is Packer for performing custom builds of virtual machine images, Terraform for compilation and Azure Automation intended for performing actions across the local infrastructure.
- For application deployment and delivery: We find Azure DevOps Services and Jenkins.
Why Intelequia?
Our team of IT professionals will be in charge of accompanying you during all the stages of the deployment of your infrastructure, being able to offer you, if you wish, an uninterrupted monitoring and follow-up with a managed service or accompany you in your projects in an integral way. Do you want more information? do not hesitate to write to us, our experts will attend you without obligation.