Cloud computing has come along way since the term wasfirst coined on August 9, 2006 by Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. “What’s interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model,” Schmidt said, “I don’t think people have really understood how big this opportunity is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing – they should be in a ‘cloud’ somewhere.”Today,90% of organizations utilize the cloud with U.S. based businesses alone spending some $124.6 billion on cloud computing technologies in 2019. Yet traditional cloud computing processes are inefficient and labor intensive. Getting the most out of the cloud requires the implementation of cloud automation and cloud orchestration solutions.In this article we will look at what cloud automation and cloud orchestration are, how they are different, and conclude with 2 cloud processes that are ideal for automation and orchestration.
What is Cloud Automation?
Cloud automation refers to a set of processes and tools used by an organization toreplace manual tasks with automated ones within a cloud environment. As cloud computing continues to increase in popularity, the number of tasks required to manage these environments has grown significantly. Manually deploying and operating functions like scaling, configuring resources, and monitoring performance is inefficient and error prone. Cloud automation is a critical component of a successful cloud transition.There are two general types of cloud automation: support for corporate data center operations and hosting for websites and/or mobile applications. Using the former, IT professionals seek to achieve the same benefits of public cloud services like self-service features and automated operations within the enterprise. The second type improves network traffic speeds through SDN and load balancing utilities.
