As automation takes hold in the world of software development and deployment, so grows buyer confusion about exactly what automation entails.

Making the case for automation in enterprise computing is software services provider Red Hat Inc., as the company drills down on key concepts regarding the emerging product realm of automation in information technology at its recent annual AnsibleFest event.

Here’s a look at five key points highlighted by the industry experts we spoke with during exclusive coverage of the event by theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. (* Disclosure below.)

1. As automation implementation speeds up, so do answers as to how to do it

Automation is accelerating. However, this trend is also seeing an acceleration of how to apply automation? according to Dave Lindquist, general manager and vice president of engineering for hybrid cloud management at Red Hat, in an interview with theCUBE. Ansible is the automation platform of IBM-owned Red Hat.

The key factor is getting everyone on board. Automation isn’t just for software developers, agreed Matt Jones, chief architect of Ansible, who joined Lindquist’s segment for theCUBE’s coverage of AnsibleFest. Others whos should be interfacing with the technology include “administrators, DevOps, SRE [Site Reliability Engineering], common users, normal people who are just trying to get things done,” Jones pointed out. To scale automation beyond standard container automation, one needs to introduce automation into all the processes, companywide and, importantly, do it much earlier, he added.

Setting up clusters, deploying applications, fixing security events and performing compliance activities are all candidates for the acceleration, according to Lindquist and Jones. And developer tools found in the latest Ansible release are going to make it easier to scale an entire enterprise into the automation stream.

2. Automation isn’t about replacing staff

The ongoing debate about whether automation will replace the human workforce still rages on. And during the recent AnsibleFest event, the topic was still at the forefront.

“We have an opportunity to take the talent we have [and] apply new skills,” Stephen Elliot, group vice president of management software and DevOps at market intelligence company International Data Corp., said in an interview with theCUBE.

“Look at automation as a way to get existing teams more productive, as well as an opportunity to learn new skills across teams,” he added, positing that information technology professionals need not worry about their jobs, even with automation-heavy CloudOps trends barking at the heels of the entire IT management workforce.

The same worker-repurposing argument is being used across generalized artificial intelligence by vendors too. They are keen not to scare off adoption of the new technologies, seeking the middle ground between bleeding-edge products and willing participants.

3. What automation is and isn’t about

IDC’s Elliot also touches on reasons for automating by saying that it’s the new technology architectures that are “driving up complexity,” and thus simplification is desired.

It’s that streamlining, obtained through automation, that’s resonating with those involved in cost management at enterprise. However, more subtle questions regarding why one should automate and what it’s for were dissected at the event.

Alleviating the hassles of monotonous jobs is only one part of the automation equation, according to Mike Todaro, senior consultant at managed services company and Ansible user Sapphire Health, during a conversation with theCUBE.

“Automating repetitive tasks is the kiddie end of the pool — it’s less about individual tasks,” Todaro said.

Both he and his colleague, engineer Eric Pennington, reckon the main reason for automating IT is actually mistake-prevention.

“If you write and build your script and debug it, the script runs, it doesn’t make mistakes. I make mistakes; the script doesn’t,” said Todaro, who is the senior Epic cache expert — Epic is a managed service that Sapphire specializes in. However, coming somewhere in-between that correctness-of-tasks-performed and alleviating tedium, falls the streamlining of corporate processes.

Automating repetitive tasks “is how we sell the idea to people who just don’t get the concept yet. There are workflows that really aren’t feasible outside of automation,” said Todaro, citing the example of moving a new hire through departments to complete documentation. Combining individual workflows in this case is a prime use.

“Let the automation move it through,” he added.

Notably, all of the Sapphire Health folks’ automation raison d’etres have cost-saving benefits.

4. AI will be writing the automation — and healing the infrastructure too

The future is one of self-writing code and self-healing IT, according to several industry experts interviewed by theCUBE. At an organizational level, that’s the way things are headed, according to Thomas Anderson, vice president of product management, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Also speaking to theCUBE during the interview was Alessandro Perilli, senior director of automation strategy at Red Hat. “Automation becomes a way to scale IT operations,” he said, insisting that automation has to go one step further.

Perilli and Anderson think future iterations should include the idea that one automates the automation — in other words, automatically execute an automation workflow.

Another key shift will be that AI will be applied to how one writes an automation workflow. The reason is partly due to the fact that some workflows operate better than others.

“There is a certain amount of complexity,” Perilli said. That’s “because you need to understand how to write in a way that the automation framework understands.” That’s in addition to communicating what you want to achieve.

“We’ll start to see artificial intelligence being applied to this problem,” he added.

Coupling “event systems and AI” is also on the horizon, said Joe Fitzgerald, vice president and general manager of the Management Business Unit at Red Hat, who also joined Anderson and Perilli in the interview. By that, he means identifying whether something in IT is broken or not functioning in an optimal manner, and then fixing it using AI.

“I’ve got all this rich data coming through my eventing systems. I can make some sense out of it with AI or machine learning,” he said.

5. The edge is ripe for automation

“We thought there was a big jump from data center to cloud,” Fitzgerald said. “Now when you start extending that out to the edge, am I going to need a new automation platform to handle those edge devices?”

A common platform extending to the edge is one solution, he believes.

“I think that’s where we see some of our customers moving now, which is automating those edge environments which have become critical to their business.”

There’s more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of during AnsibleFest 2021. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for AnsibleFest. Neither Red Hat, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: ESB Professional