If you’re like most IT leaders who rely on IBM i or AIX as the backbone of your company’s infrastructure, you’re worried about risk. Your company can’t afford any downtime, your admins may be getting close to retirement, and the threat of ransomware keeps you up at night.
IT process automation for IBM i is a key part of the solution. Automation technology will improve IT operations and efficiency, reduce complexity, and give your team greater visibility into your IT infrastructure, applications, and data. And perhaps even more significantly, it’s also important from a cybersecurity perspective.
Hackers are already using advanced automation to break into business networks. They’re using scripting and AI tooling to plant ransomware, exfiltrate sensitive data, and wreak havoc on companies of all sizes.
You can win the cybersecurity arms race. By implementing security automation for IBM Power Systems, you’ll strengthen your defenses, improve stability, boost uptime and performance, and sleep better knowing that your company’s network and data are protected from cyber threats.
What is IT process automation for IBM Power Systems?
Many IBM users don’t grasp the full potential of IT process automation for AS/400 and other Power Systems. They think it’s too complex, too time consuming, or too high risk. They think they’re just not ready for automation because they’ve been doing things the same way for years.
The truth is that IT process automation for Power doesn’t need to be hard or complicated.
According to IBM, “IT automation is the creation and implementation of automated processes and software in place of time-consuming manual activities. It is increasingly becoming a core component of any modern organization’s IT systems strategy.”
Common tasks that IBM users often automate include:
- Network configuration
- User provisioning
- Patch management
- Cloud infrastructure automation
- Automated backups to ensure business continuity
You can probably see how IT process automation leads seamlessly into security automation for IBM i. By automating repetitive tasks, removing the possibility of human error, and making sure everything is properly configured and up-to-date, you’ll improve your overall security posture.
This eliminates vulnerabilities and results in less attack vectors that hackers could potentially exploit. It ensures that your armor is always fully formed and ready to protect you.
Benefits of IT process automation for AS400 and other Power Systems
Let’s start with the bottom line: 73% of executives “expect revenue growth from implementing intelligent automation technologies” according to an IBM survey. If you’re looking to sell an automation project internally, start by putting this number in front of your CEO and CFO.
IT is a key enabler for business growth, whether your company has a mobile app, offers customer support online, or runs an ecommerce platform. You’ll unlock real business value by improving your IT with automation.
On the other side of this same coin, IT process automation also reduces costs. A Deloitte survey found that 61% of global organizations anticipate cost reduction “being met or exceeded” through automation.
There’s another issue facing our IBM Power community: so many of the guys who know how to run this tech are starting to retire, and workforce training is lagging. IT process automation can augment your admins and let you do more with less.
Eliminating human error is another benefit. The truth is that just one mistake is all it takes for hackers to find a way in, and even the best of us make mistakes. Computers always execute the code exactly as it’s written, so you can rest easy knowing that tasks like configuration and patch management are always done the right way.
How many hours a month does your team spend on manual processes? When your admins don’t have to worry about manual and repetitive tasks anymore, they can instead focus on higher-priority jobs that add more value to the organization. Let the scripts take care of the easy stuff so your team can focus on the hard stuff.
Too often, the IBM i becomes a black box, even for the teams who work on it day in and day out. IT process automation for Power Systems will help you gain greater visibility so you can start managing your IT from a centralized, single pane of glass.
On the security automation side, we see this technology improving consistency, patching vulnerabilities, and reducing downtime. For CTOs tasked with business continuity and guaranteed uptime, this makes integrating automation all that much more valuable.
How to pick the right technologies for IT process automation for IBM i
No matter how you end up architecting your tech stack, IT automation on the IBM i almost always begins with IBM Advanced Job Scheduler for i, the Power equivalent of Linux’s crontab.
This built-in tool provides flexibility in scheduling jobs, lets you run unattended jobs 24-7-365, and gives you complete control over everything from job dependencies to automated reporting and notification setting.
Our system engineers often use this tool to automate user provisioning and management. Many companies don’t regularly clear out their old users, which is a major security risk.
You might have users on your system who have all object authority—root access privilege—who haven’t so much as logged in for months or even years. We can set up automated jobs to find those users and automatically revoke their privileges or even delete them altogether based on certain criteria.
HCL BigFix
Another third-party toolset that we recommend is HCL BigFix, an endpoint manager and automated patching solution. This software can automatically scan everything from workstations to servers in order to discover vulnerabilities, proactively pull the latest patches, and, when appropriate, automatically apply them.
Unpatched vulnerabilities are responsible for one in three breaches, and the saddest part about this is that it’s one of the easiest threats to protect against—provided you’re using automation and managing downtime effectively. BigFix lets you schedule servers not to patch and reboot at the same time, guaranteeing high availability.
Ansible
Ansible automation for Power Systems, a solution from IBM subsidiary Red Hat, is another great option for IT process and security automation for AS/400, IBM i, and AIX. This technology integrates with IT environments outside IBM Power, including x86 and IBM Z, and it doesn’t require any special software in your managed OS endpoints, making it easy to get started.
Key uses include cloud provisioning, OS config management, app deployment, continuous delivery, and security automation. There’s a huge breadth of prebuilt modules you can choose from for jobs ranging from spinning up a virtual machine to installing a software package.
Automation services by CloudFirst
The final automation technology we always recommend is automated backups. CloudFirst’s ezVault solution for IBM i and AIX automatically backs up your data and replicates it across multiple data centers so that, no matter what happens, you can guarantee business continuity.
Whether you get hit with ransomware, a flood, a power outage, or any other worst-case scenario, ezVault ensures that the data and applications your company needs to function day in and day out are safe and secure on the cloud.
Take the next step to securing your IBM Power Systems with IT process and security automation
IT process and security automation for IBM AIX and other Power Systems can provide immense value, whether your top priority is boosting the bottom line, protecting your sensitive data from today’s advanced threats, or ensuring 100% uptime and business continuity.
You don’t have to do an entire IT overhaul to get started. Pick one use case and one technology to focus on, build out a pilot program, monitor the results, and prove the concept. This will help you get the buy-in you need, from both the executive team and the IT staff, to continue to push your IT automation strategy forward.
Want to learn more about how to get started? Most cloud companies and managed service providers don’t have much experience working with IBM Power Systems. But at CloudFirst, Power is what we do.
Get in touch with our IBM i experts today to learn more about how we can help you secure your fortress and optimize your architecture with IT process automation.
