StackStorm Extends Automation Reach To Microsoft Azure

One of the major challenges that any organization routinely faces is managing all the complexity associated with deploying application workloads in the cloud. Once those workloads begin to leave the local data center finding some way to automate the management of the public cloud they are running on becomes a much higher priority than it ever do when those workloads were running on premise.

To address that issue specifically on the Microsoft (MSFT) Azure cloud, StackStorm today announced that it has extended the reach of its open source IT automation integration framework to include support for Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Blob Storage and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on the Microsoft Azure cloud. In addition, StackStorm announced that its software is now certified for distribution on the Microsoft Azure cloud itself.

StackStorm CEO Evan Powell says StackStorm can be used to not only automate that management of application workloads on the Microsoft Azure cloud, but also other cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services or an OpenStack-compatible cloud. In addition, StackStorm can be used to integrate not only multiple software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, but also a variety of IT automation platforms.

Historically, IT organizations have been wary of IT automation. Many of them don’t trust IT automation platforms to be able to get deployments right at scale or, more often. Simply fear their jobs will be automated out of existence. But the advent of virtualization and cloud computing is now forcing the IT automation issue. IT organizations are increasingly looking for outside expertise to implement IT automation. The good news from a solution provider perspective is that demand for that expertise is only going to continue to increase as IT organizations begin to implement containers alongside virtual machines as an alternative form of virtualization.

Sometime later this year StackStorm plans to make its IT automation integration framework available as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment that can be more easily invoked. In the meantime, solution providers should give some serious thought to how IT automation can be applied to enable them to add value in the era of the cloud. Obviously, relying more on IT automation might reduce the number of billable hours per cloud project. But more importantly, it increases the number of projects a solution provider can take on.

At a time when cloud computing expertise is in short supply that capability alone is worth the price of IT automation admission.