The notion of process automation has intrigued us for decades. In the aviation and maritime

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3 The notion of process automation has intrigued us for decades. In the aviation and maritime industries, auto pilot technology has been an essential tool since the 1920s. In the automotive industry, both traditional manufacturers and new ones (such as Tesla and Google) have attempted to create vehicles that drive themselves. Automation also has become popular in the world of Information Technology (IT) a department that, paradoxically, is one of the least automated in many organizations. Ayehu Software Technologies Ltd. develops and markets eyeshare, a lightweight, enterprise-grade product for IT process automation. Deployed at major enterprises and supporting thousands of business users, Ayehu eyeshare helps IT professionals identify and resolve critical incidents up to 90% faster, minimizing their impact to the business and saving time for IT operations teams. With software that can orchestrate, operate, manage and monitor any number of tasks, network administrators can resolve system incidents quickly and painlessly, freeing themselves to conduct other mission-critical responsibilities and greatly improve service levels across the board. Put simply, automation can make life for an IT organization easier.

4 Formerly known as run book automation (RBA), the new breed of IT process automation integrates with service management solutions, allows for customization and even helps organizations meet compliance requirements. In recent years, as the proliferation of computing devices has led to an explosion of data in businesses of all shapes, sizes and industries, automation has become a reliable option for facilitating and expediting IT operations. Gabby Nizri, Ayehu s Co-Founder, CEO. With over 10 years experience in the Israeli hi-tech arena, Gabby is the driving force behind Ayehu and is actively involved in all aspects of the company business. Gabby has a multidisciplinary background in product engineering, sales and professional services. Prior to founding Ayehu, Gabby held various operational and management positions at Infogate Online Ltd, Webmaster and Walla Communications Ltd.

5 In its most basic form, IT process automation resolves incidents independently and reduces or eliminates the need for manual labor. In many computing environments, this approach can save significant time on tackling repetitive daily tasks, resolving incidents quickly and, as a result, freeing up time for employees to work on more strategic projects. IT process automation also can work to reduce mean time to recovery (MTTR) in the case of critical incidents. For example, specific workflows can be triggered during off-hours for handling certain types of events. IT process automation is particularly useful in large organizations environments in which 10 or more technicians are tasked with serving a user base of thousands or greater.

6 Automation also is useful in computing environments where administrators have rolled out IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms to operate and manage certain tasks over time. This approach dovetails perfectly with automation; the more processes that are tackled automatically before an ITSM solution kicks in, the faster that ITSM solution can get its job done. Another benefit of IT process automation is that it allows for a high degree of customization. With most solutions, network administrators can pick and choose which processes they wish to automate, and which processes they want to keep under manual control. They can tweak parameters dynamically, depending on usage, performance and results.

7 Most importantly, if an incident requires human intervention, technologists can temporarily pause automation for only certain processes, enabling them to address the incident at specific decision points without interrupting any of the regularly scheduled process automation protocols. Provided an automation solution is configured correctly, it can even help organizations comply with a number of industry standards, such as those that require password resets no less frequently than every 90 days. IT process automation can also make it easier for organizations to comply with state and federal reporting and privacy requirements such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), to name a few. Most industries benefit greatly from incorporating IT process automation.

8 The very best IT process automation solutions integrate snugly with ITSM solutions such as ServiceNow, SolarWinds and Splunk (to name a few). Here s how the pairings usually work:

9 One of the biggest reasons is diversity. Because today s organizations must provide users with open computing environments, many environments support hundreds of thousands of devices at any given time. As growing numbers of companies embrace a model that facilitates the consumerization of IT and encourages employees to bring their own devices, computing demands will only increase. IT departments particularly service desks need a way to keep up with these demands. Automation is one answer. IT process automation also helps businesses save money and make better use of IT resources. At a time when technology services budgets are shrinking across the board, automating a variety of the most common day-to-day tasks allows institutions to free up network administrators and technicians to tackle other projects, softening staffing demands along the way. Finally, with many companies turning to ITSM as a way of managing network services, integrating automation can increase communication and improve performance. Click here to get your own free trial of eyeshare!

10 Specifically, there are five areas where automation can improve efficiency, maximize effectiveness, and wield a significant impact on the way the organization delivers IT services every day. Resetting passwords and unlocking accounts. Onboarding employees and enhancing the new user experience Administering service restarts and rebooting devices. Deploying new integration between NMS and ITSM Managing preventative maintenance on a network or computing environment.

11 Anecdotal evidence from IT officials at a number of enterprise-level companies suggests that resetting passwords and unlocking accounts are among the most common requests that service desk technicians receive on a daily basis. At big firms those with anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 or even 50,000 users it is not uncommon to find entry-level technicians who spend their entire shifts tackling these sort of requests. By setting up automated protocols that enable users to reset passwords and unlock their own accounts, businesses can dramatically reduce the volume of calls for these issues, and free up service desk technicians to tackle more serious matters.

12 At many companies, the process of onboarding new users is a laborious task, eating up hours upon hours of manual support. The right IT process automation solution can eliminate the need to manually create network accounts, assign passwords, provision VMs, etc. In many businesses, onboarding can take days. With automation, that can be reduced dramatically.

13 The process of resolving most user problems usually culminates with a restart or a reboot. Organizations that handle these tasks manually end up with technicians just sitting and waiting for devices to cycle through. With a more forward-thinking approach, IT administrators can set up an environment that shuts down, stops and restarts Windows, Linux applications and other services automatically and remotely using or text messages. The biggest benefit of this approach is the time it saves. Click here to get your own free trial of eyeshare!

14 It s typical for companies to utilize network management systems (NMS), and increasingly normal for the same firms to utilize ITSM. What s not so common, however, is for IT administrators to put together an environment in which NMS and ITSM offerings are integrated and communicating directly with each other. Many businesses that do this write their own APIs to facilitate these interactions a Herculean effort that eats up resources on the front-end, and requires additional resources to administer on a day-to-day basis. Automating this integration enables network management and IT services management to cooperate seamlessly. When used in this fashion, some IT administrators have gone so far as to say that IT process automation serves as the glue between their NMS and ITSM solutions. BMC Remedy HP Service Manager JIRA ServiceNow Solarwinds Microsoft SCOM Nagios

15 The very best technologists don t only address problems as they arise; they address problems pro-actively, by constantly tweaking the environment for optimal performance. In some cases, this might mean regularly defragmenting the hard drive on a particular server; in other cases, it might mean backing up a Web server. Administering this type of IT services maintenance schedule actually can prolong the life of a network, much like preventative maintenance can prolong the life of a car. Still, managing these tasks manually can take an astronomical amount of resources and time. Cobbling together maintenance tasks into a single automated workflow can minimize effort and maximize results. It also can offer peace of mind for administrators who are tasked with a litany of other, more critical responsibilities every day.

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17 For starters, some automation solutions can be complicated, and require hours of tinkering before they are working the way IT administrators want them to work. The most desirable solutions are lightweight and easy-to-use, offering "out-of-the-box templates and integration packs that make set-up a breeze. Second, even though most automation solutions guarantee near-perfect performance, hiccups can still occur. When this happens, some solutions come screeching to a halt. Many automation offerings quarantine uncompleted processes while continuing to run other tasks they are assigned to complete. The top options incorporate a series of quick solution procedures or temporary workarounds for complex problems that may take longer to be resolved. Another downside to IT process automation is a lack of improvisation, of responding creatively to rapidly changing situations or incidents on the fly. By design, automation systems follow a finite set of protocols; incidents that fall outside the purview of these protocols are usually left unattended. The very best automation software products provide reports about what if any incidents were left unresolved. Most of the top solutions deliver these reports directly to an administrator who is qualified and authorized to remedy solutions on his or her own.

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19 eyeshare Click here to get your own free trial of eyeshare! Businesses can benefit from enterprise-class IT process automation solutions that are lightweight and easy to use, such as eyeshare, from Ayehu. The eyeshare solution offers drag-and-drop templates for automating common network processes, and integration packs to facilitate backend cooperation with the most popular NMS & ITSM options. It offers over 120 pre-built workflows, and includes built-in capabilities such as incident management, automated notification and escalation, shift management, run-book automation and reporting services all triggered by the Ayehu Rule Engine. All told, eyeshare can automate hundreds of processes at any given moment. When critical situations are identified, eyeshare triggers an alert that initiates an automated workflow. In general, eyeshare workflows are integrated into an organization s service desk to make sure that notifications and escalation procedures are sent to the right people on duty at the time. Companies can also use this solution to implement effective shift management to make sure IT incidents receive immediate attention. For identifying critical situations in real-time, eyeshare includes the Ayehu Dashboard, a powerful tool that displays real-time system metrics, alerts, gauges and indicators for any IT activity such as user assignment, task status, and MTTR performance.

20 eyeshare The tool also allows organizations to develop best practices for computing as a whole. As it works, eyeshare compiles data into easy-to-read reports. Over time, network administrators can call upon this data and use it to tweak the computing environment accordingly. IT officials even can utilize the data to create automated workflows that manage and monitor preventative maintenance on the system as a whole. Used this way, eyeshare not only allows administrators to automate processes on a network, but it also assists them to make that network more efficient and effective as a whole. eyeshare aims to free service desk technicians and IT administrators alike to focus on what they deem to be the most critical tasks. In the process, eyeshare empowers organizations to focus on what matters most to users: resolving pain points quickly and efficiently. Click here to get your own free trial of eyeshare!

21 Click here to get your own free trial of eyeshare! Automation can drastically improve computing operations in today's rapidly changing business environment. In this increasingly complicated arena that serves thousands of devices every day, automation software can orchestrate, operate, manage and monitor any number of tasks, network administrators can resolve system incidents quickly and painlessly, freeing themselves to conduct other mission-critical responsibilities and greatly improve service levels across the board. The very best IT process automation solutions integrate with service management solutions, allow for customization and even help businesses meet compliance requirements. Simply put, automation can make life easier for today s technologists. In an era of increasing complexity, that s a refreshing proposition for everyone involved.

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