Category Archives: Automation

JAXenter: Which issues do database management and monitoring currently have? In what ways can they profit from cloud technologies and automation?

John:One of the biggest challenges DBAs have is keeping up with the growing number and variety of platforms they have to manage. In fact, according to a survey carried out by Unisphere Research, more than two thirds (70 per cent) of DBAs are now managing more than 11 or more databases, and incredibly, 10 per cent were found to actually be managing more than 100! So, all this complexity combined with the astronomic growth of, and the need to protect data means DBAs are spending a disproportionate time dealing with tasks related to keeping the lights on and less time thinking more strategically. Automation, when used properly, can save DBAs many hours of time according to many estimates, as much of 80% of their daily/weekly routine tasks could be automated.

Migration of databases to the cloud is one way to reduce the administration workload, but there is a trade-off. As a DBA, do you go for IaaS or DBaaS? With DBaaS, the cloud services provider manages your databases backups, patching, security, etc, and you have some database monitoring capability for that specific database, but the extent to which you can manage other things like performance tuning, etc. are restricted. Unlike IaaS, where you manage the database, therefore the administrative workload is the same as on-premises, although the business costs (CapEx) will be lower.

An effective monitoring solution that works across all these different databases and environments is a must if you want to lower the administrative footprint. Added complexity means that your MTTR, in the event of a performance issue, will suffer without an effective way to detect, diagnose and resolve problems in a timely manner.

JAXenter: Aside from the positive effects, do you see any downsides in using cloud technologies for database administration?

One reason why we wont see the role of the DBA go away with autonomous databases is because of the importance they play in ensuring the safety of data.

John:The downsides of moving databases to the cloud depend on the type of cloud service the company subscribes to. With DBaaS, the DBA stands the risk of a database being taken down at any time as the service provider performs a backup or applies a security patch (or worse still, the cloud provider suffers an outage). Also, the level of service the company chooses ultimately dictates the monthly subscription cost and many companies over-subscribe because they didnt effectively right size the service ahead of time. Its really important to choose the service tier that is most appropriate for acceptable application performance and that is sometimes a challenge because cloud database behave differently than in a data center.

Another ongoing concern is security and the protection of personal or sensitive data. Having personal data in the cloud does not obviate the companys responsibility to identify and protect it in order to be compliant with data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Vendor lock-in is another concern and there is a growing adoption of multi-cloud strategies where companies may choose different cloud providers according to application requirements, cost and risk balance, regional dependencies (e.g. EU provider if having to comply with GDPR).

JAXenter: In your opinion, what impact will autonomous databases have on DBA in the short and long term?

John:Some believe that autonomous databases will impact DBAs to the point that theyll be out of a job. While I dont agree with this, I do believe that the role of the DBA will certainly shift as AI and adaptive machine learning enable organizations to automatically self-patch, self-tune, detect anomalies, and optimize indexes much more quickly and efficiently than manual hands-on processing. DBAs, now free from many of their mundane tasks, will have to take on more strategic roles in developing new business initiatives and focusing on finding new areas where they can provide value, such as DevOps.

One reason why we wont see the role of the DBA go away with autonomous databases is because of the importance they play in ensuring the safety of data. DBAs are responsible for implementing data privacy regulations, ensuring compliance, and as DevSecOps grows, theyll begin to enable things like proper testing in production environments.

In fact, DBAs should consider reinventing themselves as data administrators, since the value of data to the company is huge and the DBA is a key stakeholder who can help drive the business forward. They can be the thought leaders in what database technologies are most appropriate for their applications and help shape company strategy.

JAXenter: NoSQL has been on the rise as well. Do you believe we will keep heading in that direction over the next year?

The other benefit of using NoSQL that simplifies the DBAs job is scalability.

John:Yes, in fact, 75 percent of companies are already using both SQL and NoSQL databases with MongoDB and Cassandra being among the most popular, according to the cloud database trends report from DeveloperWeek 2019.

NoSQL hasnt seen a huge amount of movement in recent years, but I believe well see it pick up more next year, especially as people move towards fresher and newer data needs. While relational databases are good for traditional workloads like OLTP applications and business analytics (OLAP), for more complex OLTP workloads that include low-latency applications, NoSQL is better (versatility, agility, scalability). Ultimately, its a matter of getting the right database to suit the workloads of the organization, especially with the variety of structured and unstructured data in use. I also think well also see adoption of cloud NoSQL databases (such as Amazons DynamoDB and Googles Cloud Datastore).

JAXenter: Which implications will the increased use of NoSQL have, e.g. regarding the way DevOps and DBA interact?

John:Depending on the type of application, NoSQL databases offer some advantages in a DevOps CI/CD pipeline that can hinder the use of relational databases. Synchronizing relational database changes with an object-oriented application can be a challenge (called impedance mismatch) and requires application developers to leverage Object Relational Mapping (ORM) classes in their application code to relate to the database schema structure and any changes that might occur (e.g. change a column, add a table). This is something DBAs and the application team must manage to ensure things dont break.

With the growth of the use of NoSQL document databases such as MongoDB and CouchDB, this problem goes away since there is no schema in the traditional sense, meaning application developers can arrange their data (structured, semi-structured, unstructured) how they want and remove the impedance mismatch that ORM was designed to resolve.

The other benefit of using NoSQL that simplifies the DBAs job is scalability. NoSQL databases leverage commodity hardware and therefore are far easier to scale out compared with relational databases.

Thanks very much!

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NoSQL and automated databases "DBAs can be the thought leaders" - JAXenter

Advantages commonly attributed to automation include higher production rates and increased productivity, more efficient use of materials, better product quality, improved safety, shorter workweeks for labour, and reduced factory lead times. Higher output and increased productivity have been two of the biggest reasons in justifying the use of automation. Despite the claims of high quality from good workmanship by humans, automated systems typically perform the manufacturing process with less variability than human workers, resulting in greater control and consistency of product quality. Also, increased process control makes more efficient use of materials, resulting in less scrap.

Worker safety is an important reason for automating an industrial operation. Automated systems often remove workers from the workplace, thus safeguarding them against the hazards of the factory environment. In the United States the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) was enacted with the national objective of making work safer and protecting the physical well-being of the worker. OSHA has had the effect of promoting the use of automation and robotics in the factory.

Another benefit of automation is the reduction in the number of hours worked on average per week by factory workers. About 1900 the average workweek was approximately 70 hours. This has gradually been reduced to a standard workweek in the United States of about 40 hours. Mechanization and automation have played a significant role in this reduction. Finally, the time required to process a typical production order through the factory is generally reduced with automation.

A main disadvantage often associated with automation, worker displacement, has been discussed above. Despite the social benefits that might result from retraining displaced workers for other jobs, in almost all cases the worker whose job has been taken over by a machine undergoes a period of emotional stress. In addition to displacement from work, the worker may be displaced geographically. In order to find other work, an individual may have to relocate, which is another source of stress.

Other disadvantages of automated equipment include the high capital expenditure required to invest in automation (an automated system can cost millions of dollars to design, fabricate, and install), a higher level of maintenance needed than with a manually operated machine, and a generally lower degree of flexibility in terms of the possible products as compared with a manual system (even flexible automation is less flexible than humans, the most versatile machines of all).

Also there are potential risks that automation technology will ultimately subjugate rather than serve humankind. The risks include the possibility that workers will become slaves to automated machines, that the privacy of humans will be invaded by vast computer data networks, that human error in the management of technology will somehow endanger civilization, and that society will become dependent on automation for its economic well-being.

These dangers aside, automation technology, if used wisely and effectively, can yield substantial opportunities for the future. There is an opportunity to relieve humans from repetitive, hazardous, and unpleasant labour in all forms. And there is an opportunity for future automation technologies to provide a growing social and economic environment in which humans can enjoy a higher standard of living and a better way of life.

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Automation - Advantages and disadvantages of automation ...

IT automation is the use of instructions to create a repeated process that replaces an IT professional's manual work indata centersand cloud deployments. Software tools, frameworks and appliances conduct the tasks with minimum administrator intervention. The scope of IT automation ranges from single actions to discrete sequences and, ultimately, to an autonomous IT deployment that takes actions based on user behavior and other event triggers.

IT automation is different from orchestration, but commonly, the terms are used together. Automation accomplishes a task repeatedly without human intervention. Orchestration is a broader concept wherein the user coordinates automated tasks into a cohesive process or workflow for IT and the business. For example, an IT administrator enables workload scaling with automated instance creation, operating system (OS) installs and storage provisioning. They orchestrate the automation tasks in a workflow with a specific order of operations for each task. Orchestration can also include permissions and roles enforcement, approval gates and more.

IT automation relies on software tools to define and conduct a prescribed series of detailed actions that are invoked manually or by an external trigger, such as a change inIT capacity demand.

IT automation replaces a series of actions and responses between an administrator and the IT environment. For example, an IT automation platform, such asMicrosoft Windows PowerShell, combines cmdlets, variables and other components into a script to mimic the series of commands and steps that an administrator would invoke one line at a time through the command-line interface (CLI) to provision a virtual machine (VM) or implement a backup process. A more complex IT automation outcome can be achieved by combining multiple scripts into a series. These limited-scope automation processes are most beneficial when they replace a task that an administrator has to perform frequently. Admins do not save much, if any, time by automating a rote action made once per month. Automating a rote action that occurs multiple times a day, however, significantly increases an administrator's time for other tasks that require decision-making and assessment skills.

Enterprise-classIT infrastructureautomation tools trigger actions in response to thresholds and other situational conditions in the IT environment. Advanced IT automation tools oversee theconfigurationof systems, software and other infrastructure components; recognize unauthorized or unexpected changes; and automatically take corrective actions. For example, if a workload stops responding, this triggers the automated steps to restart it on a different server that has available capacity to run it. When IT automation is set to enforce a desired state of configurations, the tool will detect changes in a server's configuration that are out of spec and restore it to the correct settings.

IT operations managers can use IT automation for several tasks, including:

Incident management. Although organizations can't avoid all major incidents, IT automation can help companies deal with them when they happen. Using automation to respond to major incidents helps enterprises restore service faster and with fewer errors. IT automation lets companies reduce the duration of incidents and reduce the costs of such incidents for themselves and their customers.

Application deployment. Whether organizations use traditional or continuous integration and continuous application deployment approaches, automating essential tasks and capabilities, particularly during testing, can help them successfully deploy their applications. Automation helps companies progress from commit and build to testing to deployment in a more systematic manner, improving efficiency and throughput and reducing the opportunities for human error.

Using IT automation, organizations can deploy their applications with confidence, configure necessary services from the outset as well as get their applications and artifacts, such as work that has been documented and stored in a repository so it can be retrieved upon demand, up and running via a common, transparent approach that all their IT staff members can understand.

Security and compliance: IT operations managers can use IT automation to define and enforce security, compliance and risk management policies as well as remediate any issues by building them as automated steps throughout their infrastructures. IT automation enables IT operations managers to keep security at the front of their information technology processes and to be more proactive in their security efforts. Implementing standardized, automated cybersecurity processes and workflows makes compliance as well as auditing easier.

IT automation's benefits include faster data center and cloud operations; reduced errors and variation from one implementation of a task to the next; and enhancedsecurityand governance. However, an IT automation strategy must account for and eliminate errors; an automated error will proliferate much more quickly than a manual error. IT automation can also erroneously become a goal in and of itself, regardless of thereturn on investmentfrom the initial setup work to time saved.

Speed.IT operations requires a significant number of distinct tasks. An IT administrator can accomplish each task manually, but modern business demands place extraordinary pressure on IT staff to respond quickly to needs across large, complex infrastructures. Humans cannot provision and configure workloads in minutes and accomplish all the individual routine tasks required, at any time of day. Automation frees administrators from time spent on routine tasks so that they can apply themselves to value-added projects for the business, such as IT infrastructure optimization and experimentation with promising new technologies and products.

While automation saves time, it requires that admins carefully plan and research each task necessary for the intended workflow and then correctly translate those steps into the automation platform to achieve the desired end state. A company may appoint one or more IT automation managers, replacing or supplementing the role of IT administrators.

Accuracy.An IT administrator is liable to make an error while typing in a CLI, choose the wrong configuration setting for a server, overlook a key step in a complex task or make other mistakes. Errors lead admins to take additional time to troubleshoot and repeat the work process to get it right. IT automation enables an IT professional to construct a proven, accurate sequence of operations that can be run countless times in the same manner.

While countless repetition without deviation is a benefit of IT automation, it can also be detrimental. Errors and oversights are easily codified into an automated process, which the automation tool will perform as quickly and efficiently as it does the correct steps. If the administrator automates a complex sequence of events and misses a key step or sets a variable incorrectly, that error is repeated ad nauseam until it is caught, remediated and rolled back. The 2010 flash crash of the United States stock market damaged global trade because of an automated computer system with a flawed algorithm. Automated testing and vetting procedures must be part of an IT automation strategy.

Intent.An automated system is not the same thing as an intelligent system; it only knows as much as the human that programmed it can distill into scripts and commands. For example, an emailspam filteris an automated IT mechanism with the intent to filter out unwanted messages. Occasionally, valid email messages will end up in the spam folder, and unwanted spam email gets past the filter.

Governance.Different IT administrators perform the same task in different ways, and even the same administrator handles a task differently from one time to the next. For corporate governance and regulatory compliance, an IT automation strategy demonstrates consistency in IT operations, regardless of the administrator on any given day.

Flexibility.Processes change over time as the IT infrastructure grows and changes, and technologies and best practices evolve. Automated processes remain static until a person decides to change them. Organizations must have a set workflow to update and revalidate automation processes, including disciplined automation versioning that tracks how tasks change over time.

Integration and interoperability.IT automation tools must be compatible with systems, software and other elements across potentially diverse IT environments. Ideally, an automation tool should integrate with higher-level orchestration tools to roll tasks together under governed workflows.

IT automation is a broad term, often conflated or bound together withbusiness task automation. An automated IT workflow can accomplish a strictly IT task, such asprovisioning additional storageto a VM, or a business task, such as creating a new user account on the corporate email system.

Process automation improves workflows, typically in factories and other settings, where the same task or series of tasks occurs repeatedly.

Business process automation (BPA) is the application of IT automation to achieve goals such as increased worker productivity or lower costs of operations.

Some professionals refer to IT automation as service automation; they are functionally the same thing.

Every day, IT operations managers struggle to get more work done with fewer people. IT automation offers several benefits to help them streamline IT operations, including:

Reduced costs. Automating repeatable operational tasks, such as application deployment and service fulfillment, change and release management and patch management, can help IT operations save money by operating more efficiently, making fewer errors and reducing headcount.

Increased productivity. Automating workflows eliminates manual work, including manual testing, boosting output and freeing up workers to focus on more important projects. In addition, employees can do more work every day.

Increased availability. One of IT operations' most important priorities is to ensure the highest level of system availability. By automating save and recovery systems, as well as system monitoring and remote communication, IT operations can significantly reduce downtime and facilitate disaster recovery more quickly.

Greater reliability. Automating tedious, repetitive tasks reduces costly errors by eliminating the human factor. This is particularly beneficial in larger networks with numerous operating systems. By automating repetitive, manual business processes, IT operations managers can greatly improve reliability while at the same time relieve workers of these mundane, manual tasks.

Better performance. Not only are IT operations managers being asked to do more work, they're being asked to perform these tasks more quickly and more efficiently. IT automation tools can help them improve performance without having to add more staff.

Implementing IT automation does not guarantee results. No tool, framework or appliance assures that the IT organization will eliminate errors, improve security or enhance compliance. IT staff members need competence and skill using IT automation tools to translate IT behaviors into concrete procedural steps. For example, to use PowerShell, IT staff must understand hundreds of cmdlets with proper syntax and command-line usage.

IT automation products appear and evolve rapidly; each product has a specific focus and scope for IT and the business.

Microsoft is a traditional IT vendor that supplies automation in products such as System Center 2016 Orchestrator and Service Manager, as well as PowerShell and PowerShell Desired State Configuration.

Other automation vendors have more narrowly focused product lines. For example, CA Technologies offers Server Automation for tasks such as server provisioning and patching and OS configuration, as well as automation of storage and application components, client systems and other major enterprise specializations. A similar tool, BMC Software's BladeLogic Server Automation, includes preconfigured compliance policies for the Center for Internet Security (CIS), Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other regulations.

There are also countless emerging automation vendors in the software-defined infrastructure space, such as Chef, Puppet, SaltStack and HashiCorp. TheseDevOpsIT automation tools support software development and deployment integrated with infrastructure configurations, sometimes calledinfrastructure as code(IAC). The automation capabilities are designed so that users can create and support consistent workflows from development to operations.

IT automation is hardly a new idea, but the technology is still in its formative stages. Even the most full-featured tools depend on an IT professional or team to develop and maintain discrete automation elements, such as scripts, templates, policies and workflows.

IT automation will progress to act with greater intelligence and autonomy. IT automation platforms are likely to rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. For example, an automation tool can synthesize data on configurations, performance and other information across an IT deployment and process these inputs to discover a normal system operations benchmark, a deviation from which would trigger corrective actions.

IT automation systems imbued with AI insights theoretically lessen the importance of deliberate, human-made automation rules, relying instead on autonomous choices guided by high-level business cost and compliance requirements.

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What is IT Automation and Why is it Used?

The story of the last decade is one of data. In 2010, the world collectively generated two zettabytes of data. In 2018, that number jumped to 33 zettabytes of data. By the end of 2019, the world will have generated, in the space of 12 months, an estimated 41 zettabytes of data. By 2025, that number will grow to 175 zettabytes generated in a single year.

Out of opportunity and necessity, this data has given rise to an entire field dedicated to mining and leveraging it for business insight and acceleration. Solutions aimed at marketing, finance, operations, and of course, IT and security, have proliferated alongside the data itself. The evolution of those technologies itself tells a story about how the world views data, and what lies ahead for the next decade.

It started with analytics. Analysis tools promised to mine burgeoning data sets for insight. As the data grew, technologies increasingly incorporated machine learning to bring greater scale to the task of transforming data into knowledge. The next frontier is automation, putting data to work to scale human capacity.

In 2019, one of the hottest topics in automation was around its potential for security operations and its no wonder. SecOps teams are fighting a losing battle against an increasingly powerful enemy.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, global damages from cybercrime are expected to exceed $6 trillion by 2021 more than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined. Thats double the $3 trillion in damages reported worldwide in 2015.

At the same time, the cybersecurity skills shortage already strains enterprise resources. According to ESG Researchs Jon Oltsik, 53 percent of organizations report a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills.

For security, response automation promises to serve as a critical first line of defense, quarantining potentially affected systems before threats have a chance to spread further on the network. In 2019, many cybersecurity companies actively started to promise advanced response automation capabilities supported by AI, but its not that straightforward.

A Well-Oiled Machine

Peter Sondergaard, a senior vice president at Gartner, once wrote: Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine. Just like real oil and actual combustion engines, the quality and purity of the oil matters when it comes to the performance of the engine. It matters a lot.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in response automation. Responses are automated based on data, and if data quality is poor or incomplete, the response may not have the desired effect. Low quality oil results in low quality performance. This is particularly true in the realm of security. Traditional threat detection methods often result in thousands, if not tens of thousands, of daily alerts, only a fraction of which can be investigated and many of which are false. Automating response based on these alerts is at best a blunt instrument, taking down systems and quarantining applications that may not be compromised and degrading performance and user experience in the process.

For this reason, response automation increasingly involves technologies that rely on machine learning (ML) to produce higher-fidelity alerts. ML is adaptive, refining itself as it learns an environment to surface only truly anomalous behavior. As many organizations have learned in recent years, just like automation itself, ML is only as smart as the data from which it has to learn.

For this reason, in 2019 many organizations started to look at reframing their security strategy around data. 2019 was the year that Gartner introduced the concept of the SOC Visibility Triad, which recommends building a security strategy around SIEM, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Network Detection and Response (NDR) technologies which leverage three key data sources: logs, agents, and the network.

As weve learned, visibility is only a part of the equation. In 2020, the focus will be on how that visibility can be transformed into action, and no data source is better suited to response automation than network data.

Network data is objective, observed, and complete, encompassing every communication between every device and application wherever they exist whether in the data center, the cloud, or the branch location. Applying sophisticated ML to this data set produces reliable detections the kind on which response can be automated with precision.

Building Your 2020 Response Strategy: Robust Automation Through Integration

Security and IT leaders today dont lack for choice when it comes to security solutions. Even as security expertise and skill has struggled to meet demand, security technology companies have proliferated, promising the magic bullet that will detect any threat promises that rarely deliver. Now, more and more of these companies promise a soup-to-nuts security platform that can detect threats and automate response.

One problem with this approach is that most organizations today already have response automation solutions in place. From solutions like IT Operations Management (example: ServiceNow), to cloud provider tools like AWS Quarantine, there is already a whole category built around response.

Adding yet another response automation tool exacerbates the problem of sprawl. It also ignores the opportunity to integrate multiple data sets to inform response actions within these automation platforms, and approach that promises to improve the accuracy and efficacy of response.

In 2020, security and IT leaders should focus less on whether the tool itself automates response, and more on whether it integrates with existing best-of-breed response automation solutions already deployed within the organization.

The Age of Automation Dawns

As we close out 2019, and with it, the decade, its clear that the next ten years will be about transforming actionable information into actual action. With threats proliferating, automation will play a pivotal role in that action, scaling not only human knowledge but human capacity.

For security and IT leaders, the key to success is combining best of breed response automation tools with the high-quality data that can reduce the overall risks to their organizations.

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Year in Review: Automation - Infosecurity Magazine

Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are losing billions in potential revenue as the adoption of cost-cutting automation and orchestration technologies continues to stall. A recent study involving 150 CSPs found that the telecom industry has let up to USD 30 billion slide as a result of poor automation and orchestration.

Yet CSPs clearly recognize the importance of automation and service orchestration in improving profitability, among other benefits. Considerable efforts are currently underway to realize the opportunities these technologies present and overcome innate challenges.

The latest TM Forum report, Enterprise Orchestration Service: Building the Bridge, reviews the role of open APIs and catalogs in orchestration and explores how CSPs are working to overcome the obstacles theyre facing in orchestrating enterprise services.

Here, we outline the key insights from the report.

Open application program interfaces (APIs) and catalogs are key components in the network architecture required to fully unlock the power of 5G and support end-to- end dynamic orchestration.

TM Forum is creating a framework, known as the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), which is envisioned as a more agile replacement for traditional operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS) architecture. Its goal is to set a new vision for OSS/BSS, and a de facto standard for the design of open digital platforms.

One key attribute of the ODA (and other open architectures) is that it enables CSPs to create products dynamically, without having to write specific code, thereby reducing costs and time to market. To achieve this, the central product catalog needs to be the storehouse of all relevant data related to products, services and resources and the focal point for monetizing new technical capabilities that are being deployed into the network.

As Ludovic Robert, IT Senior Architect at Orange, explains in the report: The commercial catalog is the cornerstone to reduce time to market because it enables data-driven order capture and order delivery processes.

Many CSPs current core architecture relies on commercial software applications that have been further developed inhouse, and they often have overlapping functionality or gaps in the end-to-end customer journey. By moving towards an architecture based on open APIs, operators can address these inconsistencies and dramatically reduce the time it takes to deploy new product offers.

The benefits of orchestrating enterprise services using open APIs and centralized catalogs are clear, but in the report, three primary obstacles for operators were highlighted:

However, optimistic outlooks are also shared in the report, with senior CSP stakeholders forecasting that as 5G technology matures, well see increased levels of automation.

Although the telecom industry is yet to fully embrace centralized catalogs and open APIs on a wide scale, there are clear steps that can be taken toward increasing automation and orchestration, and some CSPs are already on their way. Heres some of what theyre doing:

Download a copy of the Enterprise Orchestration report for the full findings, insights and case studies.

Read more about network automation

Read more about the TM forums Open Digital Framework

Learn about the top three benefits of service orchestration

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Enterprise automation and orchestration: what's the holdup? - Ericsson

By Steve Dunne, Staff Writer, Workday

In a recentMcKinsey survey,only 13 percent of CFOs and other senior business executives polled said their finance organizations use automation technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning. Whats more, when asked how much return on investment the finance organization has generated from digitization and automation in the past 12 months, only 5 percent said it was a substantial return; the more common response was modest or minimal returns.

While that number may seem low right now, automation is coming to the finance function, and it will play a crucial role in furthering the CFOs position in the C-suite. Research suggests corporate finance teams spend about 80 percent of their time manually gathering, verifying, and consolidating data, leaving only about 20 percent for higher-level tasks, such as analysis and decision-making.

In its truest form, RPA will unleash a new wave of digital transformation in corporate finance. Instead of programming software to perform certain tasks automatically, RPA uses software robots to process transactions, monitor compliance, and audit processes automatically. This could slash thenumber of required manual tasks, helping to drive out errors and increase the efficiency of finance processeshanding back time to the CFO function to be more strategic.

According to the report Companies Using AI Will Add More Jobs Than They Cut, companies that had automated at least 70 percent of their business processes compared to those that had automated less than 30 percent discovered that more automation translated into more revenue. In fact, the highly automated group was six times more likely to have revenue growth of 15 percent per year or more.

In the right hands, automation and machine learning can be a fantastic combination for CFOs to transform the finance function, yet success will depend on automating the right tasks. The first goal for a finance team should be to automate the repetitive and transactional tasks that consume the majority of its time. Doing this will free finance up to be more of a strategic advisor to the business. AnAdaptive Insights surveyfound that over 40 percent of finance leaders say that the biggest driver behind automation within their organizations is the demand for faster, higher-quality insights from executives and operational stakeholders.

Accentures global talent and organization lead for financial services, Andrew Woolf, says the challenge for businesses is to pivot their workforce to enter an entirely new world where human ingenuity meets intelligent technology to unlock new forms of growth.

Transaction processing is one of the major barriers preventing finance from achieving transformation and the ultimate goal of delivering a better business partnership. It's not surprising that its the first port of call for CFOs looking toward automation.

RPA combined with machine learning provides finance leaders with a great way of optimising the way they manage their accounting processes. This has been a painful area of finance for such a long time and can have a direct impact on an organizations cash flow, says Tim Wakeford, vice president, financials product strategy, EMEA at Workday. Finance spends a huge amount of time sifting through invoices and other documentation to manually correct errors in the general ledger, while machine learning could automate this, helping to intelligently match payments with invoices.

Machine learning can also mitigate financial risk by flagging suspect payments to vendors in real time. Internal and external fraud costs businesses billions of dollars each year. The current mechanism for mitigating such instances of fraud is to rely on manual audits on a sample of invoices. This means looking at just a fraction of total payments, and is the proverbial needle in the haystack approach to identifying fraud and mistakes. Machine learning can vastly increase the volume of invoices which can be checked and analyzed to ensure that organizations are not making duplicate or fraudulent payments.

Ensuring compliance to federal and international regulations is a critical issue for financial institutions, especially given the increasingly strict laws targeting money laundering and the funding of terrorist activities, explains David Axson, CFO strategies global lead, Accenture Strategy. At one large global bank, up to 10,000 staffers were responsible for identifying suspicious transactions and accounts that might indicate such illegal activities. To help in those efforts, the bank implemented an AI system that deploys machine-learning algorithms that segment the transactions and accounts and sets the optimal thresholds for alerting people to potential cases that might require further investigation.

Read the second part of this story, How Automation and Machine Learning Are Reshaping the Finance Function, which takes a closer look at how automation and machine learning can drive change.

This story was originally published on theWorkday blog. For more stories like this, clickhere.

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Automation And Machine Learning: Transforming The Office Of The CFO - Forbes

To accelerate the creation of an e-commerce infrastructure, Albertsons Cos. has formed a strategic partnership with automation specialist Takeoff Technologies to open micro-fulfillment centers (MFCs) for online grocery orders.

Albertsons said Thursday that the move expands its relationship with Waltham, Mass.-based Takeoff. Last year, the companies unveiled plans to pilot Albertsons first MFC at a Safeway supermarket in South San Francisco. The facility began operating on Oct. 23.

Related: Albertsons appoints new chief customer & digital officer

Under the wider partnership, Albertsons has agreed to buy more MFCs from Takeoff as it sizes up market expansion opportunities. Another MFC pilot, part of the collaboration that Albertsons and Takeoff announced last fall, is scheduled to kick off before the years end at a Safeway store in San Jose, Calif.

Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons, the nations second-largest supermarket retailer, has stores in eight of the 10 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

Related: Supermarket chains step up automation to power online grocery

The micro-fulfillment center model is a key element in the store of the future, Albertsons Cos. President and CEO Vivek Sankaran said in a statement. It combines the efficiency of automation with the ease of meeting customers when and how they want to shop. In working with Takeoff, we can evolve how the MFC ties into our store and e-commerce ecosystems and accelerate our path to best serve our customers.

Situated inside existing stores, Takeoffs MFCs typically run around 10,000 square feet and hold 15,000 to 18,000 of the local markets most popular products, according to Albertsons. The retailer noted that the facilities combine the proximity of brick-and-mortar stores with the productivity of a large automated warehouse.

Takeoff's MFC solution can process about 3,500 online grocery orders weekly week per location for a two-hour service.

Compared with other fulfillment schemes for online grocery, such as a centralized model, MFCs offer a lower cost to build, faster rollout timetable and quicker time to serve, since the facilities are located near shoppers.

In collaborating with Takeoff, were able to leverage their thought leadership in e-commerce fulfillment with our expertise in running great grocery stores that meet customers everyday needs, and thats exciting turf for us, commented Chris Rupp, executive vice president and chief customer and digital officer at Albertsons. By placing an MFC in an existing store close to customers, we can carry a diverse and locally relevant selection of products with the friendly touch of our local team to service the customer.

Takeoff said its artificial intelligence-enabled robots can assemble grocery orders of up to 60 items in less than five minutes, a fraction of the speed and cost of current manual-picking options. For the robotics technology, Takeoff has an exclusive agreement with Knapp, a global provider of automated warehouse solutions.

We are thrilled to broaden our partnership with Albertsons Cos., a clear leader in grocery retailing and a key player shaping the future of eGroceries, stated Max Pedro, co-founder and president of Takeoff. With our strategic partnership, were confident well be able to add significant value to their business and consumers as we work in partnership to define the future of e-commerce.

The robotics can pick about 800 items per hour versus 60 items for manual in-store picking, and the system can process approximately 3,500 online grocery orders weekly week per location for a two-hour service. Takeoff noted that retailers can use its solution to leverage underutilized real estate and turn existing stores into micro distribution centers. And with real-time information about inventory, automated fulfillment can dramatically reduce or even eliminate product substitutions.

The grocery industry is transforming its way into the future, and the winners will be the ones getting it right first, added Takeoff co-founder and CEO Jos Aguerrevere. Albertsons Cos. move to expand its micro-fulfillment capability is a clear testament of such transformation.

Overall, Albertsons Cos. operates 2,262 stores in 34 states and the District of Columbia under the banners Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Carrs, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw's, Star Market, United Supermarkets, Market Street, Amigos, Haggen and United Express.

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Albertsons, Takeoff Technologies expand automation partnership - Supermarket News

Reuters

Banks could save billions of dollars by using technology such as automation and artificial intelligence, according to a study released Thursday by Accenture.

By using technology to automate jobs or help employees at work, North American banks could save more than $70 billion by 2025, the study showed.

Across the entire financial services industry, which includes banking, insurance, and capital markets, savings could be between $87 billion and $140 billion in the same time frame.

"Massive social and technology change is creating a range of threats and challenges," for financial services firms, Accenture wrote. But, it also creates "the opportunity to unlock significant value through a new workforce, new ways of working, and new job roles."

The study estimates that by 2025, 7% to 10% of tasks will be automated, boosting cost and productivity savings.

"Automation and augmentation can liberate hours that can then be refocused on human strengths and high-value work such as innovation, relationships and customer experience," according to the report. These are things that also generate "substantial value" for organizations, Accenture said.

More than half of tasks currently performed by loan officers, personal financial advisers, tellers, and customer service representatives could be either automated or augmented by technology by 2025, the study found.

A number of banks such as Citigroup, Capital One, and JPMorgan Chase are already using technology like artificial intelligence to aid workers, or have automated parts of tasks to eliminate jobs.

Studies have estimated that as many as 1.3 finance jobs in the US could disappear by 2030 as banks look for ways to cut costs.

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Automation and artificial intelligence could save banks more than $70 billion by 2025 - Business Insider

Our Logic expert, Jono Buchanan presents an introduction to using automation in this weeks episode of Logic Tips. The focus is very much on the creative applications of automation to help you bring life to your life. By automating several parameters, Jono is able to turn a static synth part into something much more human.

In our Logic Pro Tips series, MusicTechs Logic expert Jono Buchanan breaks down music production on Apples professional DAW. Episodes posted so far include:

Jono Buchanan is an Apple Certified instructor, with tons of experience under his belt. Hes a professor in Guildhalls Electronic Music Department, teaching BMus Year 2 Dance Music project for Electronic Musics Principal study course. Outside of that, he also produces and composes for various projects and writes reviews for MusicTech magazine too. He now also makes awesome weekly tutorials for Logic Pro X!

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For more expert advice, interviews, news and reviews visit musictech.net

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Understand Automation in this episode of Logic Tips - MusicTech

The pearls of wisdom from the AI & Intelligent Automation Network podcast episodes 96-100 include: Having a cardiac automation event, keeping a human in the loop, disrupting while you operate efficiently, conceiving of an automation weave and charting your course.

Episode 96: Steven Jo, Silicon Valley Bank

"It's like the open heart surgery. You're taking out your arteries, your main organs, upgrading them with digital technology, new operating models."

Iterative change only gets you so far. At a certain point, you've got to deal with the big issues. If you've gotten to a place where your benefiting from automation- you now must truly scale those wins across the global enterprise.

Episode 97: Kamila Grembowicz, Adidas

"If there is analytical tool- artificial intelligence giving you a list- it's a great start. You go with the list. But I don't think you can completely replace recruiter intuition and face-to-face time with some candidates- or even a call- and have a feeling of the person."

Kamila outlines keeping a human in the loop in candidate sourcing but the centrifugal force of her message is the robot simply cannot replicate humanity (yet). And so, if the goal is to better serve the customer (along the value chain), it's imperative to keep a human in the loop.

Episode 98: Tony Saldanha

"You should have a parallel strategy of automate and transform/disrupt. Because when you kind of look at things like data and AI- that's your disruptive part. You have to be able to walk and chew gum- which is operate and automate and disrupt at the same time."

'Disrupt or be disrupted' is a guiding concept as we make our way into the third decade of the 21st century. But 'disrupt while operating efficiently' is probably a more well rounded guiding concept for established legacy global corporate enterprise.

Episode 99: Lee Coulter, IEEE

"The reality is that you're not going to want to build heavy IT integration between all these systems. You're always going to be looking for something to stitch these things together in ways that are important to the business that drive some sort of material outcome."

In episode 1 of the AIIA podcast Lee Coulter talked about a work-live-weave. He caps the 99th episode by suggesting to utilize the same mindset when figuring out your enterprise system integration.

Episode 100: Cindy Gallagher

"Even if the enterprise you're a part of hasn't set one- as a senior vice president, there's no reason why you shouldn't set an automation roadmap. No matter your position- set a roadmap for your team. Sometimes, you have to beg, borrow, and steal for budget, and you may have to find creative ways within your own P&L to shift money around before anyone will give you more of it. They're not just going to hand out dollars just because they like what you said."

You might still be at the starting line because you keep hearing how much easier it is if you have C-Level buy-in...but you don't. Cindy's advice is to damn the torpedoes and get going- at least iteratively. Prove the automation journey is worth taking, showcase your (small) wins so you can secure budget and buy-in moving forward.

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[LISTEN] Having a cardiac automation event - AiiA