Democratizing IT Automation in a Multi-Cloud World

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Democratizing IT Automation in a
Multi-Cloud World:
Tools, Teams, Culture, and Best Practices for Automation Success
Dan Twing
President and COO
Enterprise Management Associates

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Featured Speaker
Slide 3 © 2021 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Dan Twing, President and COO, EMA
Dan is responsible for developing and executing strategic market
research, delivering value to IT organizations through consulting
engagements, and directing product developments and marketing
efforts. Dan joined EMA in 2005 and has over 25 years of experience
in information systems, software development, and technology
outsourcing. Dan focuses on all aspects of intelligent and automated
management of IT.

Democratizing IT Automation in a Multi-Cloud World
• This study is designed to understand the human factors in managing WLA and in addressing broader automation
• Topics include the type of workloads orchestrated by WLA, the users and other stakeholders of WLA, the impact of
cloud computing, how teams managing WLA are organized, and other characteristics impacting automation efforts.
• EMA conducted an email invite web survey of 412 IT and business stakeholders of WLA during December 2020

Sponsors

The survey included a mix of IT Staff, IT Executives, and Business users
For ease of analysis, job function is grouped as shown
Which of the following best describes your function in the organization?
28%
13%
11%
9%
7%
7%
7%
5%
3%
3%
3%
2%
1%
1%
0%
0% 5% 10%15%20%25%30%
IT Executive
IT Service Management (ITSM)
IT Operations
IT Development
IT Security
Business Operations
Business Executive
IT Cloud Platforms
Infrastructure Engineer
Compliance/Audit/Risk
Business Line Leader
Business User
Data Architect
Application Owner (e.g., ERP)
Cloud Architect
IT Staff
52%
IT Exec
28%
Business
20%
Sample Size = 412

Respondents were included from US for North America
UK, France, and Germany for Europe
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and India for APAC
In which country are you located?
31%
12%
11%
9%
7%
7%
7%
8%
7%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
United States
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Singapore
Malaysia
Thailand
Vietnam
India
Sample Size = 412
North
America
31%
Europe
32%
APAC
36%

Respondents needed to be in companies of at least 500 employees to ensure experience with
enterprise class scheduling needs
For ease of analysis, company size is grouped as shown below
How many employees are in your company worldwide?
18%
28%
22%
15%
7%
11%
0% 10% 20% 30%
500-999
1,000-2,499
2,500-4,999
5,000-9,999
10,000-19,999
20,000 or more
Sample Size = 412
Small
(500-2,499)
46%
Medium
(2,500-9,999)
37%
Large
(10,000+)
18%

Respondents represent a range of industries with significant representation from manufacturing,
software, retail, finance, high tech services, and healthcare
Which of the following best describes your company's primary industry?
15%
14%
12%
10%
8%
7%
6%
4%
4%
3%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
8%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%
Manufacturing
Software
Retail/Wholesale/Distribution
Finance/Banking/Insurance
Professional Services
Application/Internet/Managed Service Provider
Healthcare/Medical/Pharmaceutical
Government
Telecommunications
Hospitality/Entertainment/Recreation/Travel
Education
Utilities/Energy
Aerospace/Defense
Legal
Oil/Gas/Chemicals
Transportation/Airlines/Trucking/Rail
Other
Sample Size = 412

Expanding Use Cases for WLA

While traditional batch processing is still the largest category of jobs run each month,
managing data pipelines and event-driven automation are each nearly 10% of jobs
What is the percentage of jobs run each month for each of the categories of job types?
Sample Size = 412
4.1%
4.3%
5.2%
5.4%
5.7%
6.9%
6.9%
7.0%
7.4%
7.6%
7.9%
8.9%
9.3%
11.2%
0.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0% 8.0% 10.0% 12.0%
RPA orchestration
Container management
Disaster recovery functions
Embedded in applications
On-premises infrastructure configuration
Data collection (e.g., IoT)
DevOps/Application release
Public cloud infrastructure configuration
Background support for online interactive applications
Analytics and visibility
Workflow automation and orchestration
Event-driven automation
Big data/managing data pipelines
Traditional scheduled batch processing

How many jobs are run in production each month?
Sample Size = 412
7.2%
17.0% 17.4%
16.3% 16.6%
11.8%
7.6%
4.4%
1.7%
0.00%
2.00%
4.00%
6.00%
8.00%
10.00%
12.00%
14.00%
16.00%
18.00%
20.00%
Jobs
controlled
by WLA
agents
51.72
Jobs
controlled
by web
services/A
PIs
48.28
What percentage of jobs in production is
controlled using WLA agents versus web
services/APIs?
With the expansion of the types of workloads orchestrated by WLA, the number of jobs run
each month is increasing and the way those jobs are controlled is changing

How has the number of jobs run in production each month changed over the past year
for each workload software you use? / All Products
0.7%
6.7%
13.6%
30.7%
26.2%
15.8%
3.1%
2.4%
0.7%
0.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
35.0%
Increased
more than
75%
Increased
between
50% and
75%
Increased
between
25% and
50%
Increased
between
10% and
25%
Increased
less than
10%
Stayed the
same
Decreased
less than
10%
Decreased
between
10% and
25%
Decreased
between
25% and
50%
Decreased
between
50% and
75%
Decreased
more than
75%
Don’t know
Sample Size = 412
77% saw monthly jobs increase
Almost 16% saw jobs stay the same and just over 6% saw jobs decrease

Expanding Environments for WLA

Public cloud is the most common type of WLA hosting infrastructure (70%) combining IaaS and PaaS
Private cloud is the second most common hosting infrastructure
SaaS is growing but remains the least used hosting type for WLA
Where do you host your workload automation solution?
18%
30%
40%
49%
56%
SaaS
Public cloud IaaS
Public cloud PaaS
On-premises
Private cloud
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Sample Size = 412, Valid Cases = 412, Total Mentions = 794

0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
2016 2018 2020
WLA Hosting
US vs Europe (UK/France/Germany)
2016 - 2020
Public cloud - US
Public cloud - Europe
Private cloud - US
Private cloud - Europe
On-premises - Europe
On-premises - US
SaaS - US
SaaS - Europe
Public cloud is the most common type of WLA hosting infrastructure (70%)
Private cloud is the second most common hosting infrastructure
SaaS is growing but remains the least used hosting type for WLA

96% of organizations are using cloud resources to run scheduled jobs
47% are using a mix of both public and private clouds
Is your organization currently taking
advantage of any private or public cloud
resources to run scheduled jobs?
Public
16%
Private
33%
Both
public
and
private
47%
No
4%
Sample Size = 412
Which public cloud providers are you using?
58%
51%
37%
32%
23%
5%
4%
4%
4%
4%
2%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Microsoft Azure
IBM Cloud
Google Cloud Platform
Amazon Web Services
Oracle Cloud
Rackspace
CenturyLink (Savvis)
vCloud Air powered by OVH
Virtustream
Verizon Cloud (Terramark)
OVH

Expanding Users for WLA

What are the types of users who have logins to the WLA software (including the central team, if
you have one)?
62%
53%
51%
50%
32%
32%
30%
25%
25%
18%
18%
17%
16%
15%
14%
13%
1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
IT Manager
IT Operations
IT Director
IT Service Management
Security
IT VP
IT CXO
Development
Networking
Service Desk
Business Manager
Business Executive
Storage
Change Management
Test
Business User
I don't know
Sample Size = 412, Valid Cases = 412, Total Mentions = 1,937
Top WLA logins are for IT Managers/Directors, IT Operations, and ITSM

Approximately how many users of each type have logins to the WLA software?
Sample Size = 412
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
1-10 11-50 51-100 More than 100
WLA users span IT roles
Business users are becoming more common and are well represented

WLA general user is the most common method of access
Centralized scheduling teams are more likely to have general users while Decentralized are more likely to
have integrations from ServiceNow and Homegrown applications
Please indicate the percentage of end users that access your automation solution by
each of the following access methods?
Sample Size = 181
26%
22%
19%
18%
14%
1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Within the WLA solution as a general
user
Within the WLA solution as a
customized portal for end users
From integrations with chat
applications, like Slack or Microsoft
Teams
From integrations with ServiceNow
Homegrown applications
Other (Please specify)

14% believe they are serving all relevant stakeholders with their WLA
Asset management, End-user management, and business staff are the most underserved by WLA
Which stakeholders are currently not served through your workload
automation/scheduling software, but which you feel is most in need of being served?
14%
13%
13%
13%
12%
12%
12%
11%
11%
11%
11%
11%
10%
10%
9%
9%
8%
8%
8%
8%
8%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%
No others need to be served
Asset management
End-user management
Business staff
IT operations
Network operations
Business executives
Data center
Engineering/development
Cloud
IT financial optimization
Business managers
Security/fraud risk management
IoT
IT executive suite (VP or CIO-level)
Defined change management team
DevOps-driven team
Applications management/applications support
ITSM team centered in the service desk
ITSM team beyond the service desk
Cross-domain service management organization
Sample Size = 412, Valid Cases = 412, Total Mentions = 913

WLA Teams and Outcomes

How is the workload automation function managed in your IT operations?
33%
26%
12%
11%
10%
7%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
A central team is responsible for the
WLA install, oversight, and naming
standards; others have logins to…
A central team handles all aspects of
the job scheduling/workload automation
tasks.
ERP applications, like SAP or other
major application categories, each have
their own separate WLA install.
Teams use the native
scheduling/automation capabilities of
their platform/application rather than…
Different teams use the same WLA
install to manage their siloed
applications with no central oversight.
Teams use their preferred WLA tooling
without centralized control or oversight.
Sample Size = 412
Job scheduling
is decentralized
40%
Centrally
managing most
jobs
33%
Centrally
managing all
jobs
26%

0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
2013 2016 2018 2020
Centralized vs Decentralized Scheduling Teams
2013 - 2020
Decentralized - US
Decentralized - Europe
Centralized - Europe
Centralized - US

How would you describe your scheduling/workload automation environment?
3%
11%
49%
27%
9%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Very difficult
to manage
Difficult to
manage
Complex, but
manageable
Easy to
manage
Very easy to
manage
Overall
Sample Size = 412
2%
10%
56%
22%
10%
4%
14%
39%
35%
8%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Very difficult
to manage
Difficult to
manage
Complex, but
manageable
Easy to
manage
Very easy to
manage
Centralized vs Decentralized
Centralized Decentralized
36% find their WLA software easy to manage while just 14% find it difficult to manage

WLA Results
 WLA teams centrally managing WLA can be from 2 to 50 people, 69% have between 6 and 20 people
o Hours spent maintaining WLA systems:
 38% 5 hours or less per month
 48% 16 – 50 hours per month
 7% More than 50 hours per month
 While 86% manage to 99.99% success rate for every run cycle, only 12% achieve 99.99% or better:
o WLA job failure rate:
 48% Less than 1% failure rate
 42% 1% to 2.99% failure rate
 10% 3% to 5%+ failure rate
o Average Time to resolve:
 20% Less than 10 minutes to resolve
 70% 11 – 40 minutes to resolve
 9% More than 40 minutes to resolve
o Job failures resulting in missed SLAs:
 21% 1 or no missed SLAs
 60% 2 – 10 missed SLAs
 16% 11 to more than 20 missed SLAs

Addressing Broader Automation

Which statement best describes your organization's posture toward automation?
Sample Size = 412
6%
10%
26%
38%
20%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
We are "old school"
and tend to favor the
status quo over
automation
We are slow to add
automation
We tend to copy
automation best
practices developed
by others
We are somewhat
creative in our use of
automation
We are very creative
in our use of
automation
Driving automation
Automation followers
No or slow to automate
16% 26% 58%
58% consider themselves somewhat or very creative in using automation
16% favor the status quo or are slow to add automation

How would you describe the likelihood of getting funding for new automation tools in your
organization?
Sample Size = 412
3%
8%
16%
47%
26%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Not probable;
automation is not a
priority and budgets
are tight
Somewhat
improbable;
automation is a low
priority and not
specifically budgeted
Neutral; automation is
favored but not
budgeted
Somewhat probable;
automation is a
priority and budget
may be available
Very probable;
automation is a high
priority with budget
available
Automation budget likely or in place
Positive but not budgeted
No or improbable budget to
automate
11% 16% 73%
73% believe budgets are likely or in place for automation projects
11% have no budget or low priority for automation

Which statement best describes your organization's effort to evangelize automation
across the entire business?
9%
8%
30%
33%
16%
4%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
We have an
Automation Center
of Excellence
Specific individuals
have been assigned
the role of
evangelizing
automation across
the business
We have
department-level
goals to increase
automation in
business operations
Management has
encouraged
automation across
the business
Individual business
operations teams
are focused on
automating their
specific area
We have no active
effort or goals to
evangelize
automation across
the entire business
Sample Size = 412
More aggressive automation posture
Positive automation posture
No automation goals or evangelism
4% 79% 17%
17% have assigned specific individuals or have an Automation Center of Excellence for IT
Only 4% have no active effort to evangelize automation across the entire business

16% have assigned specific individuals or have an Automation Center of Excellence for IT
Only 7% have no active effort to evangelize IT automation
Which statement best describes your organization's effort to evangelize automation
across the IT organization?
7%
9%
27%
25%
25%
7%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
We have an
Automation Center
of Excellence
Specific individuals
have been assigned
the role of
evangelizing
automation across
the IT organization
We have
department level
goals to increase
automation
Management has
encouraged
automation across
the IT organization
Individual IT teams
are focused on
automating their
specific area
We have no active
effort or goals to
evangelize
automation across
the IT organization
Sample Size = 412
More aggressive automation posture
Positive automation posture
No automation goals or evangelism
7% 77% 16%

The Changing Face of Workload Automation

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Democratizing IT Automation in a Multi-Cloud World

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