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What Automation Tools Are Out There

Midiman 71 Reputation points
2021-08-05T13:15:44.34+00:00

Hi,

I am looking to automate a lot of my processes and I was wondering what should I start using to accomplish this?

We used to use SCOH but it appears that MS are not adding much functionality to it anymore.

I want to be able to run PS Scripts and Runbooks on your internal Servers.

What would be my best options?

Go with SCOH or something else?

Thanks

System Center Orchestrator
System Center Orchestrator
A family of System Center products that provide an automation platform for orchestrating and integrating both Microsoft and non-Microsoft IT tools.
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Azure Automation
Azure Automation
An Azure service that is used to automate, configure, and install updates across hybrid environments.
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Windows Server
Windows Server
A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.
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  1. George Moise 2,346 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2021-08-05T13:29:56.203+00:00

    Hi Lee,

    SCOH could still work for you on running PS Scripts as part of Runbooks on your on-prem environment.
    Still if you want you can have a look at Azure Automation Runbooks (still PS Scripts) that can be executed on Azure Resources, but also on-prem serves by making use of Hybrid Workers:

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-hybrid-runbook-worker

  2. Stefan Horz 3,461 Reputation points
    2021-08-05T19:04:46.917+00:00

    Hi @Midiman ,
    Azure Automation costs are reported here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/automation/
    You pay for started minutes for a Runbook 0,002 $/€ the first 500 Minutes per month are free. Using Hybrid Worker you can automate your on premises infrastructure. Using hybrid worker allows to Run Watcher Tasks. The costs for watcher tasks: 0,002 $/€ the first 744 hours per month are free and 744 hours are the 31 days of a month!
    Anyway, if you will switch to Azure Automation it will be most likely that you should redesign your Runbooks for cost optimization and technical because another way to access.
    Orchestrator will be part of the next version of System Center. So, Orchestrator is not a discontinued model and for me the best platform to automate on premises infrastructure provided by Microsoft. One further development in System Center 2019 is that Orchestrator runs the Windows-Powershell-Version of the Runbook Server per default. Perhaps the next version runs in 64bit ....

    Regards,
    Stefan

  3. Stan 1 Reputation point
    2021-08-09T01:53:08.08+00:00

    We have been running Orchestrator 2019 RU3, for about a year now, it is a stable product, with some powerful on prem default MS integration packs. The most used features I use would be Sharepoint 365, .net (Powershell) and Configuration Manager.

    We have a pretty complex large environment, multi domain, managing 3000+ servers, and it seems to be working "ok" (there are gremlins) but they usually point back to our complex infra.

    Yes the install is "rebranded" to 2019, still has lots of 2012 components (install path), and it runs in a 32bit Powershell mode, (workaround exists on this to force 64bit, just annoying to have to do for every script), but I agree the pace of development on this product is "Glacial" compared to Config Manager.

    It is saving us money, managing our fleet on prem 24/7. To migrate to the cloud there are very different concepts to consider, to be cost effective. We are looking to starting a hybrid model to utilise some of the very powerful features (scale sets, excellent MS product integration (power automate) and reporting with PowerBI).

    You can always download and pilot for free (is it 90days?), see what you think.

    But as Stefan mention I am "hopeful" MS will put a bit of consolidated effort to develop some of the most demanded items (64bit PS), get rid of Silverlight and one of my favourites would be "design runbooks by code / Git integration".

    Good Luck!

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