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Back in 1957, philosopher and futurist Marshall McLuhan said: “As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of 'do it yourself.'”
For the June poll question, we wanted to know how automation is enabling you to “do it yourself” in your job... or perhaps better stated: allowing you to do LESS repetitive (and often tedious) tasks in your job so that you can focus on higher-level activities and priorities.
Plus, we asked you to share what work-related tasks you expect or hope to automate in the future (think of it like an “automation wish list”).
Automation Across the Nation
Here is a summary of what community members are currently automating. Entries with a * were mentioned multiple times.
- Updating software and patching*
- Backups and recovery tests*
- User lifecycle management (creation, deletion, etc.)*
- Environment monitoring*
- Regression tests (after patching)
- Deployments
- Load tests
- Password renewals
- Database refreshes
- Creating virtual servers
- Creating customer ERP environments
- Creating DNS entries
- Logging and reporting
- Making coffee (good one, Darko! 😊)
When You Wish Upon an (Automated) Star
There is one task in particular that multiple community members wish they could automate: software updating and patching. For those who are hoping to turn this dream into reality soon, here are some resources that can help point you in the right direction:
- TechTarget’s list of the best patch management software and tools for 2023
- Kaseya’s list of patch management best practices
- LMG Security’s look at patch management policy mistakes
Other Automation Aspirations
Here are the other tasks that community members plan on, or hope to, automate in the future:
- Performance reviews (yes this is actually possible — see this article at iTechPost.com)
- SSH keys
- Auto-remediation of issues
- User access fulfilment
- X-Ray scanning of trucks cross the border to detect risky goods entering the system (here’s a cool ZNet article on this!)
The Winners Are
And now, to announce the two randomly-selected poll participants who have each won a $25 Amazon gift card: congratulations DeeJay and Allfather! Please email me at lcadieux@devolutions.net to claim your prize.
Stay Tuned
For the July poll, we’re switching gears: instead of asking you to gaze at the future, we’ll be asking you to reflect on the past. That’s all we want to say for now. 😊 Stay tuned!
