What do I need to consider when buying a workload automation solution?

When considering buying a workload automation solution, it’s natural to start with the elements that are likely to meet your organization’s needs today. However, remember to keep in mind the ways in which the solution will continue to enhance operations down the road to create a future-proof system for your company. There are a few steps you should take in order to select the best workload automation tool for your organization.

First, identify the problem areas where your business struggles so that you can create a framework for the operational needs you’d like your workload automation to address. Let’s break it into a few categories that include vital questions to ask potential vendors.

Are all of your problems tied to a specific application?

If you move forward with a workload automation, ensure that your automation solution comes with an integration to the problem-area application.

Consider workload automation platforms with built-in integrations to the system. While a workload automation can create a new process for the application from scratch, the implementation will be slower, and the integration may have less functionality.

Ask your vendor:

• What are the existing application integrations that come with the solution?

What is the scale of the environment and workload you’d like to automate?

When considering the environment you’d like to automate, the scale of your operations will come into play as you choose the best-fitting workload automation software. Different workload automations scale better when hundreds or even thousands of servers require automation, and your organization may not need that level of scale.

Perhaps there are only a handful of servers involved, but the scale of the workload is in the hundreds of thousands of jobs. The pricing structure will come into consideration here as well if the workload automation solution charges by the task.

Ask your vendor:

• Does the solution allow for automated deployment of the agent software (software typically required by workload automation solutions that needs server installation), as well as updates?

• Is there an option for agentless processing on servers?

• Does the solution support all the operating systems in the environment?

• Does it have single visibility across environments?

• Does the solution scale based on the workload?

• Does the solution have constraints in case a server may become overloaded?

Who will be using the workload automation solution in your organization?

The best workload automation tool is one that your core team of employees can adopt. If you have non-developers utilizing the workload automation solution, it needs to be easy to use.

Ask yourself:

• Does your organization have the resources to create automated workflows? If personnel resources are strained, ask if the solution provider can potentially manage the automation build for you.

Ask your vendor:

• Does the interface require scripting knowledge?

• Can the workload automation solution be outsourced to the vendor for:

  • creating new automation projects

  • hosting the software/database

  • upgrading the software

Is the workload automation solution consistently updated and always available?

When you’re investing in workload automation, you want to be sure that it's going to be there for the long haul. You're putting your infrastructure in the hands of this solution — it should be there to support you. You will need to consider how it will be deployed and maintained.

Ask your vendor:

• Is the workload automation solution consistently updated?

• What are the top items on their development plan in the next year?

• Does the solution support containerization or cloud environments?

• Have they been part of an acquisition that may affect future enhancements and support?

• Does the solution support disaster recovery features such as high availability and hot/cold failover?

• Is it hosted in a cloud environment like Azure, AWS or Google?

Organizations that adopt the right workload automation will reduce errors and time spent on repetitive tasks while releasing skilled workers to explore new areas to innovate and projects that keep them ahead of the competition, now and into the future.