Four trends that will define automation in 2019

1. Low code helps automation succeed

Enterprises want to be in complete control, and engineers want to have the ability to automate many of the traditional networking capabilities to suit the business needs.

This can come with a cost to agility and scalability depending on the approaches. Implementing automation across programs and applications can be difficult, even if you have a dedicated team of developers on staff to implement. To this end, engineers need to find a way to achieve greater automation to transform complex network infrastructure processes and services into simple, self-serviceable, automated workflows.

Low code automation will be a key driver for many automation strategies looking to ensure workflow automation and security certificates across the network.

Driver - The need to eliminate manual scaling and deliver a more automated process with pre-defined intent. This approach has the potential to play an integral role in software-defined implementations by providing higher ROI on the platform investment and metrics on the platform's capability to enable enterprise agility.

2. Automation is inevitable

In 2019, enterprises will invest more dollars in R-D and the evolution of automation solutions.

It is inevitable that companies will have to replace traditional approaches with new automation served up as SaaS. One area to will see real innovation is in the use of work-flows with automation.

Automation provides the balancing act for large volumes of data and tasks that enterprises have to manage on a daily and even hourly basis. By introducing automation workflows, companies can eliminate silos and improve day-to-day processes to increase overall efficiency.

Driver - A significant surge in the adoption of SDN and NFV to improve enterprise IT environments and further support by government initiatives to deploy advanced network technologies.

3. Budgets will drive automation in 2019

Automation is no longer a buzzword, but a real way to improve network functions and services deliver.

In 2019, IT teams will invest more money into new technologies as the older infrastructure they have been holding onto will need to be replaced. Because of increased budgets and the need for upgrades automation will be at the top of IT teams minds as they look for sophisticated tools that help deliver the needed service and automation capabilities across the network.

Driver - According to many surveys and studies enterprises are allocating the major chunks of their IT budget to automation, virtualisation and security software. Automation allows enterprises to deliver faster, error-free, and cost-effective solutions, and as enterprises start to embrace automation, they will need more technically adept professionals to help them. IT managers tasked with implementing and managing automation will also set aside new investments in professional staff to accomplish goals.

4. Test automation takes centre stage

According to Gartner, "the ground is shifting for IT infrastructure and operations." This isn't a surprise as many enterprise organisations are adopting technology faster than they truly know how to fully reap the benefits from said technology. These can span IT initiatives including AIOps, IoT and hybrid-cloud deployments.

With so many new approaches, suddenly teams are feeling spread thin and have to learn the new technologies as they deploy them. Traditional data center monitoring strategies are no longer capable of meeting this new distributed and digital-first approach. A more accurate automation testing approach is required to ensure these new technologies are delivering on the promised capabilities.

Driver - With operations and network management teams continuous testing has become a key part of the development cycle. Ultimately, IT and DevOps are looking for a way to continuously monitor and validate what has been built or deployed meets the needs of the end user.

2019 will be the year that all sides of IT implement continuous test automation to ensure everything is working as expected.