Business Made Simple with Cloud Workflow Automation
Automation is one of the most powerful tools to improve productivity. Many modern productivity and project management tools offer advanced automation to help individuals and teams reduce their workloads. Some of this automation has become so routine and part of our everyday lives that we don’t even notice it.
Over the last decade, as organizations have started adopting the cloud on a large scale, there have been significant advances in cloud workflow automation as well. Many organizations and CloudOps teams regularly use cloud workflow automation to simplify their tasks without compromising the quality of the services delivered.
What is Cloud Workflow Automation?
Many processes happen behind the scenes to keep a cloud infrastructure functioning and meeting the requirements of the organization. Many of these processes are part of a larger workflow involving multiple tools. Cloud workflow automation is used to trigger these different processes automatically and reduce the workload for the tech team.
Automation is commonly used to orchestrate cloud environments or cloud migrations which often involves a lot of repeatable steps.
Often with multi-cloud environments, IT departments may have to orchestrate individual cloud solutions from different vendors. Or sometimes they may have to move large amounts of data between legacy systems to the cloud or between different cloud solutions. In some instances, organizations may rely on containers and microservices to conduct their business processes.
These processes are largely repeatable and will take up a lot of resources if IT teams handle them manually. Cloud workflow automation can simplify this and reduce the workload for the organization as a whole.
What are the advantages of Cloud Workflow Automation?
As organizations grow and their cloud infrastructure scales up, automation is a necessity. IT departments simply cannot scale up and handle a large cloud infrastructure with manual processes. Manual processes simply take up too many resources. Modern businesses can’t sustain that level of growth for long.
With automation, organizations can scale up easily without having to invest more in human resources. They can expect the same level of performance and efficiency even when they serve a much larger user base or process heavier workloads.
Besides this, cloud workflow automation presents a slew of advantages to organizations and IT teams. Here are a few of them.
Reduces human errors and eliminates many time-consuming and repetitive tasks
When you’re dealing with a large number of manual processes, you’re looking at opportunities for error. Every new manual step introduces the possibility of errors which creates significant risk. When an IT team is using manual processes to maintain and manage the cloud of a large enterprise, the consequence of an error can be costly. It can make services inaccessible and slow down or even completely stop business processes.
The IT team will also be held back by the number of time-consuming and repetitive tasks. They won’t be able to see the big picture and focus on more important tasks. With workflow automation, the team will have more resources to make their system more efficient and save costs.
Provides better administrative oversight across the cloud, network, operating system, etc.
For large businesses that rely on the cloud to manage their processes, it's not easy for executives to gain control over their entire infrastructure or visibility in a complicated multi-cloud environment, particularly when the processes are manual.
It’s also difficult to ensure consistency even with clear policies, different users or employees may interpret it differently.
Large enterprises also must deal with industry regulations and compliance. They need to ensure that the processes are carried out according to these regulations or face heavy penalties. They must also remain compliant with licensing requirements for the solutions they use. But once again, with manual workflow, organizations will struggle to meet these regulations.
With workflow automation, organizations can improve consistency and compliance across the entire infrastructure. They can make policies that can be easily implemented without draining resources.
Creates processes that reduce costs
Cost is often presented as both an advantage and disadvantage for cloud systems. The pricing is much more flexible than on-premise or legacy systems and in the long run it’s cheaper to have entire operations on the cloud. But without proper controls and systems in place, cloud costs can go through the roof. Therefore, developing cost-efficient processes are important for sustainable cloud infrastructure, and yet again, automation can help.
With workflow automation, IT teams can set up pre-defined triggers that will scale up or shut down cloud processes according to usage. It allows IT teams to strikethe right balance between performance and cost and consistently optimize their cloud systems.
Reduces time in a process cycle
Manual processes take time and can create unnecessary delays. In a completely manual workflow, the IT team may not detect changes or requirements quickly enough. If there’s a sudden surge in demand or if there’s a cyber attack, it may take a while for the team to notice. Once they do notice the issues, it may take more time to respond.
In many situations, these delays can be costly. It can reduce the availability of cloud systems and affect end-user satisfaction. It can also slow down business processes, further costing the organization.
With automation, enterprises can make sure that their systems respond quickly. They reduce the time required for different processes and prevents delays.
How to Achieve Efficient Cloud Workflow Automation with Lyve™ Cloud
Lyve cloud is an edge-to-cloud mass storage platform designed to be simple, easy to use, and highly flexible. The solution is designed to store the data closer to the edge and allow its frictionless movement through different cloud environments. It can help organizations simplify their cloud storage and make it accessible through a single platform.
Lyve cloud helps organizations to keep pace with the growing volume of data they are generating. It’s designed to keep costs under control and prevent vendor lock-in through its infrastructure and vendor-agnostic architecture.
World-class security
Lyve Cloud is compliant with the highest security standards in the industry. The solution’s Information Security Management System is modeled after ISO 27001. Lyve Cloud is also certified with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications.
All the data stored in Lyve Cloud is encrypted with server-side encryption. Enterprises can either opt for Server-Side Encryption with a client-provided key or Server-Side Encryption with a key generated by the Lyve Cloud Key Management System. Lyve Cloud comes with network and application firewalls and intrusion detection and supports two-factor authentication for logins.
The solution is designed to be aligned with industry standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and ISO. Lyve Cloud is constantly updating its security certification according to customer requirements.
Lyve Cloud secures data in transit with TLS 1.2 with 256-bit AES-256-GCM standard. Besides this, the solution uses storage hardware validated by Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
Low and stable TCO
Lyve Cloud is designed to be low-cost and high-performance. The solution helps organizations easily manage their cloud expenditure and build long-term cloud strategies with predictable costs. With Lyve, organizations don’t have to worry about hidden charges or surprises at the end of the billing cycle.
Enterprises only pay for what they without egress or ingress fees. There are no long-term commitments with Lyve; the solution is designed to keep the organization’s cloud agile and mobile.
The features ensure that organizations can easily predict their monthly billing and keep the TCO low.
Enhance multi-cloud strategy
Lyve cloud is designed for organizations to take complete advantage of multi-cloud. Lyve is compatible with cloud offerings from almost all the top vendors and can work with public, private, or hybrid clouds.
The solutions allow enterprises to easily move their data between different cloud environments without additional expenses or friction. Organizations can also use the cloud solutions best suited for them without having to worry about compatibility.
The vendor and infrastructure-agnostic design of Lyve cloud prevents vendor lock-in for enterprises. If an organization realizes that the solution or vendor they’re currently working with is not the best for their use cases, they can easily switch to a new solution with the help of Lyve.
The Future of Workflow Automation
With advances in ML and AI technology, automation in cloud infrastructure is only going to increase. New solutions and technologies offering smoother and faster automation are coming out every day. We can expect more advanced automation for threat and intrusion detection as well as disaster recovery.
Recent years have also seen no-code or low-code platforms on the rise. These platforms that aim to simplify application development will also come with a slew of automation for maintaining and scaling the backend infrastructure.
These solutions are likely to permeate more aspects of the cloud and see more complex automation in the future.
Collaborate with Seagate for Best-in-Class Workflow Automation
Seagate offers industry-leading storage solutions for enterprises and are designed to be simple, mobile, agile, flexible, and highly available. By collaborating with Seagate, businesses can grow and scale their cloud infrastructure with state-of-the-art workflow automation.
