What new cloud orchestration and automation trends should you know?

1 Multi-cloud orchestration

One of the biggest challenges of cloud orchestration is dealing with multiple cloud platforms and services. Each cloud provider has its own APIs, interfaces, features, and limitations. To orchestrate workflows across different clouds, you need a tool that can integrate, coordinate, and standardize them. Multi-cloud orchestration tools can help you achieve this by providing a unified layer of abstraction, automation, and governance. Some examples of multi-cloud orchestration tools are Terraform, Ansible, and Kubernetes.

2 Serverless automation

Serverless computing is a cloud model where you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You only pay for the resources you consume, and the cloud provider handles the scaling, availability, and security of your code. Serverless computing can simplify and speed up your cloud development and deployment, but it also introduces new challenges for automation. How do you automate tasks such as testing, monitoring, debugging, and troubleshooting serverless functions? Serverless automation tools can help you address these challenges by providing frameworks, libraries, and plugins that integrate with your serverless platform. Some examples of serverless automation tools are Serverless Framework, AWS SAM, and Azure Functions Core Tools.

3 AI-powered orchestration and automation

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance cloud orchestration and automation by adding intelligence, learning, and adaptation. AI-powered orchestration and automation tools can help you analyze your cloud environment, identify patterns and anomalies, optimize performance and costs, and automate actions based on predefined or learned rules. AI-powered orchestration and automation can also enable self-healing and self-optimizing cloud systems that can respond to changes and incidents autonomously. Some examples of AI-powered orchestration and automation tools are Google Cloud AI Platform, IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, and VMware vRealize AI.

4 DevSecOps integration

DevSecOps is a practice that integrates security into every stage of the development and operation of cloud applications. DevSecOps aims to ensure that security is not an afterthought or a bottleneck, but a continuous and collaborative process. DevSecOps requires cloud orchestration and automation tools that can embed security checks, scans, and controls into your workflows, pipelines, and configurations. DevSecOps orchestration and automation tools can help you enforce security policies, detect vulnerabilities, remediate issues, and audit compliance. Some examples of DevSecOps orchestration and automation tools are Chef InSpec, HashiCorp Vault, and Prisma Cloud.

5 Low-code/no-code orchestration and automation

Low-code/no-code orchestration and automation tools are designed to simplify and democratize cloud orchestration and automation. They allow you to create workflows, scripts, and configurations using graphical interfaces, drag-and-drop elements, and pre-built templates. Low-code/no-code orchestration and automation tools can help you reduce the complexity and coding skills required for cloud orchestration and automation, and empower non-technical users to participate in cloud management. Some examples of low-code/no-code orchestration and automation tools are Microsoft Power Automate, Zapier, and Cloudify.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?