What Does Cloud Automation Mean?
Cloud automation is a fundamental building block for the cloud computing paradigm.
Automation aims to make all activities related to cloud computing as fast, efficient, and as hands off as possible through the use of various software automation tools which are installed directly on the virtualization platform or software and controlled via an intuitive interface.
Techopedia Explains Cloud Automation
Cloud automation is meant to alleviate the complexity that comes with cloud computing orchestration, which is the deployment of the different resources and modules in a cloud computing or virtualized environment.
This is mainly because of the number of things to do like deploying individual virtual machines plus their set-up, not to mention set-up and deployment of other virtualized infrastructures such as server and storage clusters and virtual networks, as well as monitoring and managing the health of the entire system.
Automation tools which do all these work for the administrator help ensure that the system is performing optimally and that all requests regarding deployment and allocation of resources are fulfilled quickly and efficiently. With cloud automation, the setup of an entire fleet of uniform virtual machines can be done in just a few simple steps as opposed to setting up each one individually.
This process is done through the use of virtual machine templates or even clones, while the automation system does all the bulk of the setup and deployment. The operator simply has to select a few options and tick some boxes and then wait for everything to finish. Automation software is either sold by third-party vendors or come as part of the chosen virtualization platform.