Four steps to enterprise automation

SnapLogic: Start with integrating apps and data, end up with platform democracy

Organisations are turning to cloud-based solutions because they want to achieve faster time to market, an improved customer experience and ultimately better business results, said Michael Nixon, VP product marketing at SnapLogic.

The thinking is that cloud will offer best-in-breed solutions that are easy to integrate together, at least much easier than maintaining hundreds of applications and growing volumes of data on premises, but this is not always the case.

"Doing integrations between these applications is a pain," Nixon said during a presentation at the Computing Deskflix Cloud Automation event recently. Applications vary when it comes to integration: "Some are great, some not so great, and even if you can do it, some might require extra documentation that's not kept up to date."

In addition, integration skills may not be readily available. "Really, it's a struggle," he said.

Nevertheless, it's a struggle worth pursuing because integrating and automating processes in the cloud can be a lot more efficient. According to Gartner, enterprises can expect to save around 30% of operational costs by automating processes.

The goal should be enterprise automation that covers all areas - on premises, cloud, remote working - and all use cases, in a process that combines the skills and talents of IT and business teams

There are four steps to achieve this, according to Nixon.

First is app and data integration; next is creating events between the applications, which is where enterprise automation comes into play. The third step is end-to-end orchestration across the entire enterprise, ideally from one platform; and fourth is building on the democracy thus obtained to enable citizen developers and casual users to create their own apps, analytics and data products, over which they will have ownership.

Crucial to this process is that integration should be a good user experience. "Ease of use is key," Nixon said.