
Broadcom has made available a software-as-a-service (SaaS) edition of its automation platform as part of an effort to eliminate the need to deploy dedicated IT infrastructure to automate the management of IT environments.
Aline Gerew, head of automation for the Agile Operations Division at Broadcom, said Automic SaaS will make it simpler to streamline the management of hybrid IT environments spanning everything from the network edge to the cloud and mainframe computing environments.
Automic Automation provides IT teams with an extensible IT automation and workflow automation platform that is being used by 2,000 organizations, including 60% of Fortune 100 organizations.
With the addition of a SaaS version of the platform, itโs now simpler for IT teams working for any size organization to invoke those capabilities via a SaaS platform that Broadcom manages on behalf of multiple customers. The ultimate goal is to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for deploying the Broadcom automation platform, said Gerew.
That approach also makes it simpler to deploy and manage the agent software needed to automate workflows, she added.
In addition, the latest features are made instantly available as Broadcom updates the platform, she noted.
Broadcom is also making use of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to ensure network connections to its SaaS platform are secure.
In the meantime, itโs only a matter of time before Broadcom adds generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to its automation platform, said Gerew. In fact, as the SaaS edition of the platform is rolled out, it will become easier to collect the data required to train and extend large language models (LLMs).
Itโs not clear to what degree IT teams will be relying on dedicated platforms to automate workflows versus relying more on the reasoning capabilities of an LLM to rely on an AI assistant to complete a task. LLMs are, of course, probabilistic, so any recommendation made by one should be reviewed. In contrast, an automation framework such as Automic is designed to enable IT teams to consistently automate workflows at scale.
Regardless of approach, as application environments continue to become more complex, the need to automate workflows becomes that much more pressing. Platforms such as Automic provide IT teams with a set of tools that can be used either by IT service management (ITSM) or DevOps teams to orchestrate workflows across multiple types of platforms and services.
A major part of the reason more workflows have not been automated thus far is that the cost of acquiring the infrastructure required to run an automation framework is not insignificant, an issue Broadcom is now trying to address by providing an SaaS option.
There are, of course, multiple SaaS options for managing IT environments so each organization will need to determine which one makes the most sense based on cost and the complexity of the IT environment. The one thing that is certain is the total cost of hiring additional IT staff to manage those workflows is likely to exceed the cost of relying more on a platform to automate as many workflows as possible.