Chris Steffen joins the EAE podcast to discuss how automation teams can collaborate with security teams to maintain a secure, resilient environment.

Enterprise automation is expected to orchestrate critical processes 24x7x365. Automation teams must address risks from infrastructure failures and security vulnerabilities in their tools and environments.

Key Ideas

- Automation systems carry high risk due to their critical role and extensive integrations across business, analytics, and operations.

- Cloud and SaaS foundations still require automation teams to understand configurations for reliability.

- Business-critical automation systems often demand 99.999% availability ("five nines").

- Risk assessment is the first step to address cybersecurity, examining implementation, integrations, operations, and access controls.

- Limiting access privileges and eliminating unused accounts reduces vulnerability.

- Changes to systems can impact availability and security, requiring careful change management proportional to risks.

- Security teams and automation teams share the goal of a reliable, resilient environment.

Takeaways for Automation Leaders

- Regularly assess risks from human error, software defects, and third-party failures. Test updates in non-production environments before rollout.

- Build relationships with security teams to prioritize risks and improve team knowledge.

- Audit access management to identify and limit unused or excessive privileges.

- Review change processes for automations, software, and infrastructure to identify mitigations for significant risks.

Show Links

- Chris Steffen - Cybersecurity Awesomeness podcast - Zero Trust Working Group for the Cloud Security Alliance - "Five Nines" High Availability (Wikipedia) - NIST Cybersecurity Framework - SANS Institute⁠

Building on the learnings from a recent EMA survey on mainframe modernization initiatives, we discuss where these initiatives fit into enterprise activities and what automation teams should consider when involved in these efforts.
Key Ideas
- Business transformation and technology portfolio modernization efforts are occurring in many organizations
- These initiatives have become a core part of how businesses evolve to meet customer expectations and grow into new markets
- In the past, many technology teams took an incremental "just enough modernization" approach to limit costs and risk, however, this can be insufficient where dramatic business process changes are needed
- Mainframes and other aging systems are commonly identified as bottlenecks to achieving the targeted customer experience and related business goals, requiring modernization or replacement to enable the initiative's objectives
- Enterprise automation is an integral part of these modernization efforts, maintaining existing process flows through the legacy system while establishing new workflows for the targeted process changes

Takeaways for Automation Leaders
- Automation teams are expected to maintain existing service levels on existing workflows while the business processes are evolving into their new form
- Consider modernization as an ongoing business activity that the automation team participates in rather than a one-time project
- Develop a playbook that can be applied to each modernization effort, and invest in building the skills of your team to become valuable contributors to these efforts.

In this episode, we explore BMC's recent decision to split into two companies, a strategic shift announced shortly before BMC Connect 2024. We break down what this means for the future of BMC and its customers, diving into the key updates from the conference, including exciting innovations from BMC's Innovation Labs, the latest on HelixGPT the Change Risk Advisor, and Helix Edge.
We also discuss what BMC's business changes mean for the automation ecosystem, and insights from automation users currently undertaking mainframe modernization efforts.
Tune in as we discuss how these developments will shape the future of AI, automation, and IT operations.

Enterprise Automation Excellence Podcast: Episode 2 - Orchestration

Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke discuss the increasing use of the word "Orchestration" in the automation space, considering whether it reflects a relabeling of existing concepts or an evolution of the automation landscape. They look at how automation's use has expanded from technology operations to business process management and how orchestration enables more complex use cases via delegation of task management to specialized scheduling solutions.

Key Points:

- Orchestration is an evolution in IT automation, enabling the management of more complex processes across hybrid infrastructure environments

- Orchestration expands the use of automation to control the specialized scheduling functions embedded within applications (e.g., ERP systems) and middleware.

- Orchestration can help to coordinate the management of disparate systems to achieve end-to-end automation of complex business functions.

- Some existing automation tools already include orchestration capabilities, integrating with built-in schedulers to manage tasks and monitor activity.

Takeaways:

- Evaluate your existing automation tools to understand their orchestration features. Many workload automation tools may already have significant orchestration capabilities, even if they're not labeled as such.

- Map automation coverage: Use the Gartner SOAP framework to map out your organization's current automation coverage. This may help identify gaps and redundancies in your automation strategy.

- Look for new opportunities to apply orchestration within your organization. Consider areas where coordinating multiple specialized tools could improve efficiency or reliability of complex processes.

- Focus on developing or acquiring additional integrations with key systems and platforms in your IT ecosystem to expand your ability to orchestrate across diverse environments.

- Discuss orchestration with your stakeholders and other executives. Be ready to explain how it aligns with and supports broader business goals and digital transformation initiatives.

Feedback and Questions: eaepodcast@emausa.com

EMA: https://www.enterprisemanagement.com/

EAE Podcast Home: https://em360tech.com/podcast-series/enterprise-automation-excellence

Enterprise Automation Excellence Podcast: Episode 1 - Welcome
Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke discuss the goals and scope for the Enterprise Automation Excellence podcast, then discuss the learnings that automation leaders should take from the CloudStrike outage this past July.

EAE Podcast Home: https://em360tech.com/podcast-series/enterprise-automation-excellence

Feedback and Questions: eaepodcast@emausa.com

EMA Cybersecurity Awesomeness Podcast - Episode 72 (CloudStrike): https://media.transistor.fm/cb00ae8d/0932d549.mp3