It is impossible to imagine our economy without any automation. Be it in form of large automated production lines or in sending of emails. The automation of various tasks often prevents manual errors and in some areas also helps to save time and thus costs.
Especially within the IT industry, the automation of complex and costly processes is an important component. This is referred to as an IT process automation (ITPA). The manual management of workflows in the areas of IT services, support and administration, are mostly affected by this.
An IT process can be defined as follows: A process or an activity that processes or develops existing business areas.
Day after day, different tasks arise in IT, here are a few examples:
These processes are often complex and therefore involve numerous steps. This is where automation comes into play. This applies not only to software, but also to service aspects.
If manual workflows and processes are automated, resources and personnel are simultaneously relieved. The time gained can help in order to drive innovation. This can have a positive impact on the growth of a company.
Within a software solution, IT process automation can mean connecting multiple systems, applications as well as platforms, unifying infrastructure and eliminating bottlenecks.
The first step is to identify the task to be automated and customize the corresponding workflow with individual functions. Popular automation mechanisms include automatic activation by a trigger or a fulfilled pre-defined condition.
Examples are as follows:
Not only tasks within a software can be automated. Especially for service offerings, many companies use automated workflows to quickly respond to customer inquiries and problems. A ticketing system can answer certain questions automatically, but also forward requests to the right people. This speeds up the process and reduces inconsistencies.
The benefits are obvious: faster and more efficient processes, in addition to the cost savings and increased productivity, the susceptibility to errors also decreases. Another important aspect is automated error detection and problem solving. This means that known error patterns and sources can quickly be identified and used as triggers for automation.
However, this does not mean that all IT processes can be meaningfully automated. Automation and manual processes both have their raison d'être and should be used in a targeted manner for the company.
A prime example of how harmoniously Libelle IT Group solutions integrate into existing process flows in customers' infrastructures is Libelle DataMasking. On the one hand, an anonymization run can be carried out via the familiar web frontend. If, for example, the so-called wait points remain activated, manual user intervention is required at the end of each individual phase.
On the other hand, an anonymization run can also be performed at command line level. Such a script can easily be scheduled as a Scheduled Task (Windows) or Cronjob (Linux), so that the anonymization is performed fully automatically at a certain point in time.
The same is done in our dreamteam combination with Libelle SystemCopy and Libelle DataMasking. In Libelle SystemCopy, masking is integrated as an additional task and is thus also performed completely automatically.
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