Blog Post Exploring Cloud Automation Integrations for the UAC

Developing secure integrations between cloud solutions and automation platforms is the key to creating end-to-end cloud orchestration. Of course, accomplishing this is easier said than done. The cloud is integral to the modern IT landscape. It’s so prevalent that just about every business has more than one. According to ZDNet, only three percent of companies today use a single public or private cloud.

For today’s IT leaders, multi-cloud environments equate to disconnected data and workloads, random acts of automation, and manual interventions. All of these are valid concerns when you’re attempting to automate a multi-cloud environment. Most companies start automating the cloud with custom scripts, cloud schedulers, simplistic built-in job schedulers, or open-source tools. However, they quickly find that it’s impossible to drive scale this way.

As a result, enterprises have turned to service orchestration and automation platforms (SOAPs) to centrally manage the automated processes within cloud service providers (CSP) and cloud-based applications. SOAPs connect to cloud solutions via secure pre-built integrations. Once connected, SOAPs enable end-users to orchestrate automated processes from a single platform centrally. The ability to manage all cloud automation​​​​​​​ from one place allows enterprises to create workflows that span across multi-cloud environments. 

Read on to learn how integrations make all the difference. In addition, find out which pre-built integrations you can download today to extend how you use the Stonebranch Universal Automation Center (UAC).

Integrations Set SOAPs Apart from Traditional WLA

Service orchestration and automation platforms represent an evolution of traditional workload automation (WLA) tools. A SOAP’s ability to securely integrate with third-party technologies — whether on-prem or in the cloud — is the foundation of orchestration within a hybrid IT environment.

These evolved WLA solutions orchestrate complex hybrid IT cloud environments using traditional agent technology and modern API integrations, centralized on a single platform to unify control and observability.

Stonebranch Makes Cloud Orchestration Easy

Stonebranch offers pre-built integrations for cloud tools that help you create either single automated processes or complex automation workflows that can connect otherwise siloed cloud systems. Available to download from the Stonebranch Integration Hub, these integrations allow the UAC to automate tasks across private cloud, public cloud service providers, SaaS applications, and just about any cloud tool that has an API.

Stonebranch also empowers users to create their own integrations to connect to any tool in their IT ecosystem — whether it exists today or not. The Universal Integration Platform (UIP) 2.0 offers templates and documentation to simplify development. Once complete, you can even contribute your creation to the Integration Hub for others to use. Whether you use pre-built integrations, build your own, or share with other users, this extensibility helps future-proof your technology investments for years to come.

Here are a few of the pre-built cloud service automation integrations available today — more are on the way!

Multi-Cloud Environments

Inter-Cloud Data Transfer

Stream data across cloud providers and storage applications — without intermediate storage. This cloud service automation integration connects to AWS A3, Google Cloud Platform, SharePoint, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Hadoop HDFS.

Amazon: AWS, SQS & EC2

AWS3: Cloud Storage Bucket File Transfer

Automate real-time file transfers into and out of Amazon S3 cloud storage buckets.

Amazon SQS: Create, Monitor, and Send Messages

Centrally send, store, and receive messages between software components.

AWS EC2: Create Instances

Create EC2 instances with parameters, as a task or from the AWS launch template.

AWS EC2: Start, Stop, and Terminate Instances

Manage EC2 instances on-demand, simply by providing one or more instance IDs as input.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Big Query: Schedule, Trigger, Monitor, and Orchestrate Operations

Automate your Google BigQuery operations: create datasets, list datasets and tables, load local and cloud data to a table, export table data, and view job information.

Microsoft Azure

Azure Blob: Manage File Transfers

Move data to and from Azure Blob Storage containers.

Azure Data Factory: Schedule, Trigger, and Monitor

Manage data pipeline processes in Azure Data Factory.

Azure Logic Apps: Schedule, Trigger, and Monitor Workflows

Centrally control Azure Logic workflows and retrieve Azure Logic workflow output execution.

Azure Virtual Machines: Start, Stop, and Terminate Instances

Automate virtual machine operations in real-time to potentially reduce your cloud spend.

Next Steps

Ultimately, integrations between a SOAP and your cloud solutions help you go from random acts of automation to end-to-end cloud orchestration. Your teams will no longer be bogged down by writing or maintaining custom scripts, or worse yet, manually transferring data from one cloud to another. Instead, you’ll gain a bird’s-eye view of performance and data across your company’s ever-growing ecosystem.

Visit the Stonebranch Integration Hub to explore the entire marketplace of UAC integrations.