A survey of 501 IT leaders published today by Broadcom suggested that islands of automation that operate independently of each other are major contributing factors to organizations failing to meet service level agreements (SLAs).
The survey found that 98% of respondents encountered at least one automation issue, with 61% noting that SLA issues are a monthly occurrence. More than a third (35%) said these issues occur weekly. A full 88% indicated SLA breaches directly impacted customers in a significant way.
The survey also found nearly three-quarters (74%) lacked visibility across their data center and cloud environments, with an equal number lacking end-to-end visibility of their automated business processes. Only 28% possessed tools that could predict automation issues, and more than two-thirds (68%) were unable to model or predict whether a new or updated automation job would actually meet SLAs. A full 69% said they are unable to properly size automation workload resources, with 61% having no way to simulate automation workloads before implementation, the survey found.
Only slightly more than half (55%) of respondents, however, could provide SLAs and key metrics in a format that is appropriate for business stakeholders.
Aline Gerew, head of automation for the Agile Operations Division at Broadcom, said that while it’s routine for IT teams to leverage a range of automation tools and platforms to manage IT, it’s clear they are challenged to manage those platforms in a comprehensive fashion. As a result, whenever there is an issue with one tool or platform, it creates a bottleneck that impacts customer experience in a way that ultimately adversely impacts revenue, she noted.
In fact, many IT teams are now starting to identify automation architects within their IT teams to enable DevOps teams in a more holistic manner, added Gerew.
Overall, the survey found that 80% of respondents are using three or more automation platforms, with just over a quarter (27%) using six or more.
Nearly three quarters (74%) are also relying on three or more observability solutions, with just under a quarter (24%) using six or more. Just under three-quarters of respondents noted they are consequently subjected to alert storms that ultimately serve to make it more challenging to resolve issues. More than half (56%) of respondents are blind to the downstream effects of an initial alert and, as a result, do not inform response teams of which systems, jobs, applications and business processes are affected.
In some ways, IT automation has become too much of a good thing. Every provider of an IT platform makes automation tools available, but as they are invoked, each one creates yet another island that IT teams are expected to manage in isolation. However, all it takes for an SLA not to be met is for an issue to arise that IT teams can’t easily determine the root cause of because one or more automation platforms obscure the underlying issue in the absence of any standardization, noted Gerew.
Given the complexity of modern IT environments, automation is now a requirement. The issue, as always, is finding a way to apply it all in the most transparent way possible.
