The Top 5 Benefits of Cloud Automation for Businesses

Additionally, the latest progress of OpenAI and ChatGPT-like solutions and generative AI in general also accelerates the need for cloud migration, which requires management automation solutions.

A January 2023 Google Cloud Brand Pulse Survey found that large numbers of IT and IS leaders in leading organizations, across a wide range of industries, are planning to expand their cloud usage.

Some 41% of those surveyed said they are gearing up to increasingly utilize cloud-based services and products, with another 32% saying they plan to migrate legacy enterprise software to cloud-based tools, and roll out additional cloud migration from on-premises workloads.

Cloud automation, which sees tasks and infrastructure resources automatically deployed and executed, is a major part of this shift towards cloud-based tools and solutions. It comes with a number of important benefits for businesses, but also raises potential concerns around security.

In the past, cloud security was the major concern for organizations moving to the cloud. Today, enterprise organizations are most concerned about financial management within the cloud, with security coming in as a second priority, according to the 2023 State of Cloud survey.

Here’s a breakdown of the advantages of cloud automation for your enterprise, some critical elements necessary for effective cloud automation, along with security tips and strategy for your company’s cloud-based systems.

Cloud automation is a term referring to automating cloud computing tasks and processes, reducing manual intervention, and minimizing errors in deploying and managing cloud-based services, tools, and solutions.

This technology automates the deployment, scaling, and management of cloud infrastructure, applications, and services. It leverages cloud computing capabilities to automate processes, enabling businesses to streamline their operations and freeing up teams and employees from time-consuming, manual tasks.

Automation within the cloud could look like a customer automatically receiving an email with a receipt, after reaching out to a company and asking for a purchase confirmation. That customer’s request can be fulfilled via automation, with no human intervention from the customer support team required.

Another example of cloud automation in action would be a command to leverage more servers for a particular service, due to a sudden influx of a large number of users. Rather than servers being overloaded and unstable, an automation could automatically prompt the use of more servers - and that’s without a flustered member of the IT team needing to manually ensure that more servers are used.

Cloud automation can provide many useful benefits for your company, help you stay competitive in a crowded market landscape, and ensure that your company’s resources and manpower hours are used in the most effective and smartest ways possible.

The biggest benefit of cloud automations are that they ensure that tasks, whether they’re mission critical or everyday housekeeping, take place at regular times. That could look like information transfer between apps under particular circumstances, procedures that recognize specific situations and launch protocols in response to those scenarios, and more.

Cloud automation takes the guesswork and busywork out of both the core and fringe procedures that regularly occur within your business. Embracing automation means setting up automatic actions that take the burden off your organization, from C-level executives to administrators to junior employees alike.

Rather than requiring manual intervention from your employees to launch processes that occur on a regular basis, automations can ensure that these actions take place at regular intervals or according to need. This frees up your employees and teams to focus on other tasks, instead of (oftentimes) tedious busywork.

It’s important to note that not all automations are created equal. Some automatons may spare an employee from a 45 minute task which needs to take place each week. Other automatons may save just thirty seconds, but when it comes to tasks that need to be performed hundreds of times on a weekly basis, that quickly adds up.

When a process or sequence of actions is automated, you can rest easy knowing that it will take place at the right times or at the correct intervals. While automation doesn’t completely eliminate the risk of human error, it means that a critical action will never get lost in the shuffle or shifted down to the bottom of a list of priorities - the action will take place, regardless of whatever else is going on within your business at a particular moment. This consistency means that you can expect the same outcomes and results from your regular processes, at all times.

Cloud automation that is security-focused can ensure that remediations and threat recovery processes take place swiftly. This is especially critical when considering that during a potential breach, time is of the essence and a quick response could mean the difference between minimal harm and irreparable damage to your company.

Cloud automation and multi-cloud formats create ecosystem-wide innovation in an organization. This shift means that teams can work faster and more efficiently, as well as respond to challenges in a fast-paced, agile manner, helping save time and boost business revenue. Think of your organization automating the possibility to collaborate with a startup that can boost and provide value for your customers – THAT is real value.

Cloud automation involves a wide range of technologies and processes, including Infrastructure as Code (IAC), Policy as Code (PAC) , configuration management, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), monitoring and alerting, and serverless computing.

These technologies work together to automate cloud computing processes, enabling organizations to provision, manage, and scale cloud-based resources efficiently.

Infrastructure as Code (IAC) is a cloud automation technique that allows organizations to manage and provision their infrastructure using code. This approach enables developers and IT teams to automate infrastructure management and treat it as a software development process, leading to more efficient resource utilization and faster deployments.

Policy as Code (PAC) allows policies to be defined as code, which can be version controlled, tested, and deployed with the same level of rigor as application code. This approach helps to ensure that policies are consistently applied across an organization's software systems, reducing the risk of errors or inconsistencies. 

Configuration management is another critical element of cloud automation, which involves defining and maintaining the desired state of the infrastructure. Oftentimes, this happens by using cloud automation solutions like Ansible, Puppet, and Chef. These tools automate the configuration and management of cloud infrastructure, applications, and services, reducing manual intervention and improving reliability.

Continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) is a practice of automating the process of building, testing, and deploying applications in a cloud environment. This approach helps to accelerate software delivery, reduce errors, and improve the quality of code.

Monitoring and alerting are also important aspects of cloud automation, enabling organizations to gain visibility into their cloud infrastructure and detect and respond to issues quickly. By setting up automated monitoring and alerting systems, organizations can ensure the availability and performance of their cloud-based services.

It’s important to note that some kind of Cloud and Process Orchestration is needed for all the above.

All in all, cloud cyber security is incredibly important, and even more so if you’re going to be rolling out extensive automations. A breach of your company’s cloud could mean serious damage to your brand reputation and lost customer and investor trust, along with financial and even legal consequences.

Before implementing a wide range of cloud automations, you should perform a thorough analysis of your business’ current needs and resources. That means a full-spectrum look at all the cloud applications, tools, services, systems, and solutions your company uses, along with a breakdown of how you can leverage automations to streamline internal processes. You should also consider your organization’s multi cloud strategy, in the case that your company will operate multiple cloud systems.

Note that if an agile approach better fits your organization’s needs/state/size, you could plan your strategy and architectural vision upfront, then evaluate and assess your application migration to the cloud in phases.

KPMG Edge’s Cloud Solutions Hub offers business owners and senior management teams numerous automation solutions for the cloud. Our in-house developed and created set of cloud tools are designed to help your company accelerate your journey to the cloud, while ensuring that you enjoy the most advantageous total cost of ownership and lowest initial and maintenance expenses possible.

Unique, proprietary solutions offered by the KPMG Edge Cloud Hub include:

• LZaaS – Landing Zone as a Service for Multi Cloud Providers
• CAMP – Cloud Assessment and Migration Platform
• COMP – Cloud Optimization and Management Platform  (FinOps ++)
• Landing Zone SecDevOps Accelerator
• Open Banking Landing Zone Accelerator

All of these tried-and-tested tools are crafted to ensure that your cloud transition is smooth and cost-efficient. But for more on cloud strategy and how cloud automation can help your business, you can leverage world-class guidance from the experts at KPMG. Our team of seasoned professionals have years of experience guiding companies through their cloud transitions, with our team having participated in large-scale, global projects for industry-leading organizations.

As part of our cloud consulting services, we offer you the following cloud strategy, value assessment and roadmap planning. We also provide Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) design and implementation, multi-cloud strategy and design, and Cloud Target Operating Model (CTOM) consulting.

If you’re interested in utilizing our proprietary tools, gaining valuable guidance regarding your Cloud architecture and infrastructure design and set up, and other services for cloud migration and modernization services, get in touch with KPMG today.

This blog was written by the KPMG Technology Consulting Cloud team.