As a former customer, before co-founding a specialist automation consultancy, I used Automic Automation in the banking and financial services sector. However, Automic's versatility extends far beyond finance, as it is employed across numerous sectors, including manufacturing, utilities, pharmaceutical, government, and retail. It's impossible to think of industry where Automic isn't a valuable tool.
When I worked in the banking sector, scalability and low latency were paramount. These factors and the ability to run processes across multiple platforms – from enterprise systems to mainframes and now the cloud – were our primary drivers. Today, customers increasingly seek cloud-ready solutions, and Automic's ability to be hosted on the cloud is a significant advantage. Notably, the SaaS version of Automic is equally powerful (with the same features and functions) as its on-premise counterpart, which is rare in the Workload Automation marketplace. Ultimately, customers demand multi-platform automation solutions capable of handling cloud, enterprise, and sometimes mainframe environments, while delivering scalability and low latency. Automic Automation effectively addresses all these critical requirements.
Most processes automated with Automic are business critical. Maintaining a highly performing, robust and secure Workload Automation infrastructure is critical to any organisations well-being.
Automic's scalable infrastructure is a key differentiator in the market. It offers a comprehensive suite of advanced job types and is a market-leader in this respect. Moreover, its ability to integrate seamlessly with in-house solutions through programmatic and web service interfaces is unparalleled. This flexibility allows for simple and highly complex implementations, depending on organizational needs. While transparency and supportability are essential for any workload solution, Automic's adaptability ensures it can meet diverse requirements.
Automic Automation is instrumental in supporting our growth due to its exceptional architecture. Unlike systems limited by the number or throughput of communication or workload processes, Automic's highly scalable infrastructure eliminates the need to partition it into multiple instances to mitigate latency. This inherent scalability is one of its most significant and compelling advantages.
Managing complex workloads is simplified with Automic Automation, especially now with the added visibility provided by AAI for Automic customers. This enhanced visibility and reporting is easily understandable, eliminating the need for specialized knowledge to interpret the data.
Automic provides excellent visibility and control across our clients' operating platforms. By leveraging the AAI module, we can not only monitor jobs and processes within Automic but also extend our view to external workload tools like Redwood Tidal, IBM IWS and other Broadcom solutions including AutoSys and CA 7, which is particularly beneficial for larger organizations with diverse tooling. Additionally, AAI's advanced analytics and critical path analysis enables proactive SLA managements; identifying and alerting for potential breaches in advance, providing Operations and Support teams with the opportunity to make timely interventions. This extends to modern cloud environments where processes can be tracked from Automic initiation through to platforms like Apache Airflow, eliminating visibility gaps. Furthermore, the ability to monitor processes within applications like SAP sets Broadcom apart by offering a unified view of operations across multiple platforms, applications, and automation engines.
I would give the predictive modelling provided by the AAI module a perfect score. Thank to the substantial R&D time and investment being focused on AAI, it will undoubtedly improve over time. As AAI continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of the field, customer feedback is crucial in this process. As exemplified by the development of Airflow integration which was developed in response to customer needs. Airflow is a perfect example of the increasing number of cloud-based automation technologies operating in silos, which present customers challenge due to a lack of governance and support, compared to more established systems. To address this, we must encourage Broadcom to expand the range of technologies that can be observed and analyzed by AAI.
Predictive modeling is crucial for strategic planning, especially in industries with strict regulatory requirements and tight deadlines, such as banking. Early visibility into service-level agreements is essential to ensure timely market entry or regulatory report submission. Real-life examples demonstrate the value of early warnings in preventing missed deadlines and operational disruptions. Compared to organisations relying on traditional IT Operations methods, users of Broadcom's AAI module gain significant competitive advantage including enhanced efficiencies and minimised risk. For some the primary benefit of AAI is regulatory compliance, but for all customers, optimized processing allows faster time-to-market and increased competitiveness.
The primary benefits of consolidating multiple technology instances into a single, more capable, and scalable one have been increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Essentially, we've gotten more value from our technology investment. Additionally, this approach has enhanced configurability, and leverages Automic's market-leading security and user management features. For some customers, these factors have been crucial driving forces, as they can be implemented relatively quickly. Similarly, reporting capabilities are significantly accelerated. While achieving greater sophistication or transparency in workflows might require additional projects or process reengineering, the immediate advantages in reliability, scalability, and security are often substantial.
Migrating a competitive product to a new platform may reduce infrastructure or agent-related failures, but customers often resist changes, insisting on maintaining their existing commands, scripts, and execution methods. This "rubbish in, rubbish out" approach hinders immediate improvement. To achieve substantial benefits, we encourage customers to adopt a holistic view of their workloads, allowing us to optimize processes. For example, we transformed a customer's poorly structured, error-prone script into multiple well-managed jobs with enhanced error handling and visibility. While tools like Automic are helpful, our expertise as a service provider is crucial. As driving a Ferrari requires skill, utilizing advanced technology effectively demands specialized knowledge and governance. So, we would like to emphasize the importance of expert advice and support, regardless of the chosen technology.
Automic Automation always receives high compliance scores and is typically loved by security and compliance departments. Product security is highly configurable, enabling very precise definition of user access, based on each user's roles and responsibilities. Additionally, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be set and monitored, using AAI, tracking processes through their critical path across Automic and beyond.
Automic SaaS can dramatically reduce operational costs by eliminating the need for a dedicated team of infrastructure specialists working around the clock. The exact savings will vary depending on the organization's size but will likely be substantial. While it's inappropriate to quantify the savings as a reseller, it's clear that adopting SaaS can lead to significant cost reductions.
Automic Automation helps in automating and orchestrating processes across legacy and modern systems, including cloud environments.
Currently, automated environments span from cloud and enterprise systems to the mainframe. Applications include SAP, other ERP tools, and specific retail integrations like Oracle Retail. However, the extent of automation often varies depending on the customer. Manufacturing clients, for instance, require automation across ordering, parts, and delivery systems. Essentially, Automic manages the production lines of major companies, demonstrating the ubiquitous nature of workload automation across diverse systems and industries.
Thanks to AAI, I consider Automic Automation to be the industry leader in observability.
I have been using Automic Automation since 2007. It is simple to implement.