Cloud Orchestration Vs. Cloud Automation Explained

Nowadays, the public cloud has become the tech solution of choice for many companies, including Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook. Why? The reason is simple - due to flexible nature, public cloud solutions allow businesses to save money on unused resources. Moreover, cloud hosting is a perfect way to save time on managing and maintaining the data centers in which your data is stored since these are the responsibilities of your cloud service provider. 

However, to receive all those benefits from your private cloud solution and make its work even more effective, you should be aware of modern cloud automation and orchestration practices. 

What Is Cloud Automation?

Cloud automation includes the set of processes and tools used to replace manual labor by leveraging automated routines of a particular task within a cloud environment.  

In this way, cloud automation allows developers to avoid repetitive and manual tasks. At the same time, such an approach makes the public cloud system more reliable and transparent. Cloud Automation is considered to be the critical DevOps methodology since it enables rapid deployment and scalability of resources and agility for continuous delivery and integration.

Let’s find out more about the most popular usage of Cloud Automation. 

• Establishment of an Infrastructure as Code environment (IAC) to streamline the resource management of the cloud system and make its workflow more efficient
• Cloud workload management to track the system processes and allocate resources in a more effective way
• Workflow version control to audit and monitor the cloud system’s changes 
• Connection of disparate elements in a hybrid cloud environment so application placed on private and public clouds could operate together into a cohesive system 

The example of a cloud automation appliance is the Facebook social media network that automatically scales the system and maintains its availability to users while monitoring workload and allocating resources.

What Is Cloud Orchestration?

Cloud orchestration is a framework that allows you to manage multiple workloads automatically across different clouds and turning them into a single workflow. By using this approach, you can create an automated environment and coordinate various functions, teams, security, cloud services, and compliance activities. 

Thus, cloud orchestration eliminates costly mistakes and improve the productivity of your cloud infrastructure, while providing you the opportunity to manage the bigger picture of your cloud automation effectively. 

So, how can you utility cloud orchestration? Let’s see. 

• Automation of multiple tasks, such as management, arrangement, and coordination of cloud systems and services at once into a single workload for executing a larger workforce
• Comprehensive performance of undergoing automated tasks in a particular order regarding one another and within a workflow, while optimizing coding and preventing errors 
• Connection of heterogeneous systems and managing networks in both public and private cloud solutions that might be geographically separated 

A real-life example of cloud orchestration is how Amazon adjusts its privacy policy across different regions leveraging location-dependent protocol going on top of the system. The system identifies the location of a particular user and changes the privacy policy accordingly.

In a nutshell, cloud automation and orchestration are essential elements of a productive cloud computing workflow. While automation takes over routine tasks and reduces human errors, orchestration creates the system out of several automation processes and arranges their work in a streamlined and clearly defined sequence. In this way, you receive a productive and scalable cloud infrastructure. Still, these tools bright you a bunch of other benefits, described in the next paragraph. 

Advantages of leveraging automation and orchestration in cloud workflow

If you in doubt, whether to implement cloud automation or orchestration for your cloud infrastructure, consider the following benefits they will bring to your organization: 

• Reduce operation costs that allow you not only save resources for innovations but also create space for starting new projects
• Make the workflow more transparent and clear; thus all your cloud system processes are clearly defined and regulated automatically
• Provide higher effectiveness thanks to automated routines, consistent results with fewer resources and supervision

In conclusion 

While cloud automation and orchestration are different terms, on a practical side, they perform similar actions and could be used simultaneously. Cloud automation is targeted at managing a single function. At the same time, cloud orchestration manages multiple automation at once. You can use both approaches depending on your project type, and business needs to ensure high-efficiency workload and at reduced operating costs.