IT automation
Save time, reduce cost, and increase quality
Modern, dynamic IT environments must be able to scale fast, and IT automation tools are crucial in achieving that. We often refer to IT automation as Infrastructure automation, but the benefits are the same. When you choose to improve existing processes with automation, you will save time, reduce cost, increase quality and also improve employee satisfaction.
Meeting the challenges in automation
The main challenges in IT automation are the high upfront investment, ongoing maintenance of fragile automation, fragmented tools and environments, resistance to change and skills gaps, and the risk of large-scale failures when automation goes wrong. In practice, organizations often struggle to justify early costs, keep automation reliable as systems evolve, connect legacy and modern environments, build the right capabilities internally, and prevent automated errors or manual workarounds from creating instability.
The automation challenge
Tool Sprawl
The practical mitigationPlatform Engineering standardizes a curated “Golden Path” toolset.
The automation challenge
High Blast Radius
The practical mitigationImplement canary deployments, automated rollbacks, and strict staging tests.
The automation challenge
Configuration Drift
The practical mitigationEnforce “GitOps” where changes must go through code repositories.
OUR OFFERING
Business value through automation
Not only does automation drive business success it also helps teams deliver more consistent results and gives employees more time for meaningful work.
Through our deliveries around Devops and automation, we provide all the services and technology required to make your IT automation initiative successful.
Using AI to generate insights, training machine learning models to predict incidents or capacity needs, and building automation.
Automating repetitive steps in your existing processes to save time, reduce manual errors, and lower operating costs.
About Redpill Linpro
Redpill Linpro is the leading provider of Open Source services and solutions in the Nordics.
With around 300 specialists across Sweden, Norway and Denmark, we help organisations build, integrate and operate secure and sustainable digital solutions across cloud, integration, data and open source technologies.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Whenever you come across a repetitive task you can use IT automation. IT automation has been common in industries like manufacturing, robotics and automotives for decades. It’s not a new thing in the technology industry, but with digital transformation automation has become the key to IT optimization.
IT automation solutions has many different use cases. When we start to combine these use cases, we see the real benefits of IT automation. Redpill Linpro has more than 15 years of experience with IT automation services. Through our deliveries around Devops and automation, combined with partnerships with leading vendors like Red Hat and Hashicorp, we can provide all the services and technology required to make your IT automation initiative successful.
Artificial Intelligence, together with machine learning and deep learning, is increasingly shaping how we think about IT automation.
At a practical level, this means using the data and metrics you already collect to generate insights, training machine learning models to predict incidents or capacity needs, and building automation that can adapt based on what it learns over time. As these capabilities mature, they make it possible to move from reactive operations to a more predictive, data-driven way of planning and managing your IT environment.
- Refueling, configuring and updating laptops, desktops (legacy and UEFI BIOS) and VMs with RHEL7 and 8 using Satellite 6 and Puppet 5
- Installation and configuration of Icinga2 server and clients, with alarms in Jira.
- Automated initial installation and initial configuration of Red Hat Identity Management and FreeIPA using. Ansible and third-party Ansible roles and Ansible modules
- Automated management of all content in Red Hat Identity Management and FreeIPA using. Ansible and third-party Ansible roles and Ansible modules
- Automated issuance and re-issuance of X.509 certificates from PKI in IdM / IPA for HTTPS using. Ansible and Certmonger
- Automated issuance of Kerberos keytabs from IdM / IPA for host, HTTPS, NFS and CIFS using. Ansible
- Automated initial installation and initial configuration of Red Hat Satellite 6 and Foreman w / Katello using. Ansible and third-party Ansible roles and Ansible modules
- Automated administration of all content in Red Hat Satellite 6 and Foreman w / Katello using. Ansible and third-party Ansible roles and Ansible modules
- Automated provisioning of virtual machines on VMware using Ansible and Satellite 6 / Foreman w / Katello based on VMware Template image in VMware
- Automated deployment of the most business-critical applications in production with Ansible, based on legacy method and packaging (rpm package) of the application
- Automated administration of internal software repos on Satellite 6 and Foreman w / Katello, using Ansible
- Automated GPG signing of RPM packages, to be uploaded in software repo on Satellite 6 and Foreman w / Katello
- Automated installation and basic configuration of Jira with associated automated installation and configuration of PostgreSQL database, NGINX reverse proxy w / SSL termination
- Automated password database based on passports, and use of GPG keys from Yubikeys
- Automated secrecy management in Ansible Vault, where Ansible Vault keyphrase has been stored GPG-encrypted in a file checked in git-repo
- Automated encryption of Ansible Vault keyphrase file, with different GPG public key compilation
- Automated Ansible Vault rekey of Ansible Vault encrypted files, with method that should be run regularly when changing teams or for other needs
- Re-implemented configuration management of the most business-critical applications with Puppet 4 and using R10K, Hiera 5, Hiera eyaml, Foreman as ENC and appropriate setup, based on previous implementation performed with Puppet 3 (which was legacy at the time of execution in 2017)
- Automated installation and basic configuration of GitLab with Ansible
- Automated installation and configuration of Barman with Puppet for automated backup of PostgreSQL database, with the possibility of Point In Time Recovery (PITR) with low RPO and RTO
- Automated installation and configuration of Varnish HTTP Cache with Puppet, with managed VCL
- Automated installation and configuration of Java application server Wildfly 10 with company-specific customization using Puppet 4
- Automated configuration of authentication solution with OpenID Connect to the ID port using Apache module mod_auth_openidc using Puppet
- Automatic creation of system accounts in Cyberark PAM system
- Automated Elastic stack server and agents (beats)
- Automated Dogtag certificate server with creating SSL certificates on machine based on configuration in inventory and submission and approval of the certificates in Dogtag
- Automated deployment of various docker containers based on configuration in inventory
- Automated user management in AD (Created users with specific settings and sent out email to that user with a login password).
- Automated full configuration of Gitlab and Installation
- Automated full configuration of Pulp
- Automated VMware template build with Hashicorp Packer
- Automated configuration on VMware vSphere
- Automated installation and full configuration of Ansible Automation Platform
- VDI management server setup with git + repos, vagrant, ssh, pass integration for ssh keys and access control
- Automated package installation and configuration of many different products
- Automated system check against CIS benchmarks and configuration of systems according to CIS recommendations
- Gitlab workflow via CLI and API to cover several different needs that take too long via GUI
- Hashicorp Vault node deployment via Terraform, Packer and Ansible in combination
- Hashicorp Consul node deployment via Terraform, Packer and Ansible in combination
- Service setup in Azure Functions to generate Hostnames including filter and name patterns
- Host deployment and management in Azure Cloud via Ansible Automation Platform
- Host management via Chef
- Testing of Software packages before deployment in Vagrant
- Using VMware templates instead of manually setting up nodes in VMware
- Machine management and integration with Red Hat Satellite
Talk to an automation expert
Embracing automation in your existing processes can deliver significant benefits, including time savings, cost reduction, enhanced quality, and greater employee satisfaction. Together, we can identify the most effective automation opportunities to help your organisation achieve its goals.
Kirsti Stien
Region Manager DevOps Oslo