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10 Time-consuming
IT Tasks you should
Automate Today! ..and free up your scarce resources
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Quite often, IT automation is feared with the notion that it’s
complex, requires resources and large investments.
The solution is simply to start small – gain quick wins in
automating repetitive tasks, before expanding automation
into more complex processes. In this eBook we assembled
10 IT tasks that you should easily automate to free up
resources and launch new IT process automation projects.
Enjoy,
Introduction
Ayehu’s Founder and CEO
il.linkedin.com/in/gabbynizri
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1/ Password Resets/Unlock Accounts 5
2/ Free up server disk space 6
3/ Shutdown remote computers 7
4/ Monitor Files and Folders 8
5/ Restart Windows services 9
6/ Automate SQL Queries 10
7/ Change service account password 11
8/ Monitor Windows Event Logs 12
9/ Automate VMware tasks 13
10/ Incident Escalation Process 14
Table of Contents
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How much time does your IT team
(and Help Desk group) spend on
Active Directory password resets and
locked accounts? This can sum-up to
tens of hours on a weekly basis,
depending on the company size
and number of user requests.
Frequent password resets,
coupled with a complex
password policy, lead to
repeated account lockouts.
In some cases, IT support personnel
handle password reset calls for almost
40% of their working day. The
procedure for each call includes phone
authentication, execution of reset,
confirmation, and documenting the
call closure.
Password Resets/Unlock Accounts/Change Passwords
1 1
According to the Burton Group, password management
can cost $250 per
user, per year.
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Automating password reset alone can drop helpdesk queries by more than
The automated alternative: An automated workflow
that handles the entire process. Users initiate the
resolution through a self service portal. The workflow
then reset the password or unlocks the account and
sends it back to users. Optionally, it may first request a
staff confirmation via SMS.
The results of such process reduce support calls and
reduce end-user downtime. Admins can view and
control user actions, and have more time to focus on
more valuable tasks.
See the ‘Active Directory reset password’ workflow in action
30%
Password Resets/Unlock Accounts/Change Passwords
1 1
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One of the most frequent causes of
unscheduled downtime for
applications is a critical disk space
shortfalls. In fact, insufficient disk
space on one of your SQL Servers, IIS
applications, or Exchange can be
more disruptive than any other
system or network failure.
A simple issue, such as fast-growing
log files that consume disk space, can
cause a server to crash. If such a
simple task is neglected, it can lead
to an expensive downtime and hours
of lost work.
Free Up Server Disk Space 2 2
Disk Space is probably on every IT or system administrator’s task list, yet it continues to be a major cause of outages.
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Monitoring and proactively
maintaining your servers with disk
clean-up jobs is a repetitive, time-
consuming task. You can make it easy
for you by just automating it as you
wish.
The automated alternative:
An automated workflow that:
• Monitors servers for low disk space
• Archives, deletes or moves any logs
or temp files to a different location
• Sends notifications about disk space
• Can be scheduled to run on regular
basis, or to be initiated based on a
trigger
See the ‘Free up disk space’ workflow in action
Robots cleanup pools automatically. What about your server disk space?
Free Up Server Disk Space 2 2
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Shutdown remote computers 3 3
Regardless whether ‘going green’ is a
social trend or not, you can take simple
actions to significantly reduce energy
consumption and cut IT
operational costs.
Ford, the US-base car manufacturer,
estimated that 60 percent of its
global employees did not shutdown
their computers at the end of a
working day. Doing so, according to
Ford, would save 16,000-25,000
metric tones of carbon dioxide a year
and $1.2M in energy costs.
Average energy savings per computer over 12 month period can reach $36. Do the math!
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See the ‘Shutdown remote computers’ workflow in action
The automated energy saving alternative: A workflow that
turns to standby mode all network-connected idle computers
or servers, based on rules and policies.
The switch to standby mode is preferred to a forced
shutdown, as it eliminates complications and the need for
long wait for boot up each morning.
We are saving over $2000
per day with a simple automated
workflow that switches all our PCs
to standby mode.
- IT Manager at a large bank
Shutdown remote computers 3 3
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Change may be a good thing for the world, but not necessarily for the Sys admins.
How many times you had some issues
with users deleting or changing files then
claiming they never touched them?
If you have users trying to blame you for
their system errors due to file changes you
should start monitoring them now!
You need to have monitoring on your
mission critical app’ files and folders, for
any change or to check data integrity. But
this is not the only reason why you should
do that! a hint - IT security and
Compliance.
Monitor Files and Folders
4 4
Knowing that a change occurred is important as knowing who made the change in the first place.
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The automated alternative: A pre-defined set of
workflows that automate daily routine tasks on
your mission-critical files and folders:
• Monitor changes, file deletion, file size, last
modified
• File parsing and data integrity
• Handle any change or errors with automated
alerts notifications and remediation tasks as
needed.
• Delete, Move, Archive, Compress files etc…
to maintain system availability
See the ‘Monitor file and folder’ workflow in action
“If you don’t need it, why keep it?”
Monitor Files and Folders
4 4
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How many times a day do
you find yourself having
to restart a service remotely
because of frequent changes
to application configuration
files, service crashes, or the
need to release system
memory?
And there is always a backup or email service that
stops working just when you are having a night out
or watching your favorite game. Once again, you
need to remotely connect to the server, restart and
check service availability, this can take a while!
Don’t you want to make this easier for you?
Restart Services Remotely 5 5
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The automated alternative:
Setup a workflow that is either
scheduled or automatically triggered
via alert. The workflow should:
• Monitor Windows/Linux services,
backup, antivirus, spooler, email,
app services
• Diagnose and troubleshoot events
• Send an alert (email, SMS) in case
a service failed
• Perform semi-automated
remediation - either restart the
service automatically, or wait first
for a human decision received via
email or SMS
See how to ‘Restart services remotely’ using a workflow
Automating service restart can reduce risk and application downtime by 90%!
Restart Services Remotely 5 5
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Do you find yourself repetitively executing SQL queries
to extract data for IT and business use and then
emailing the results?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could automate this process?
Instead of you or a DBA becoming a bottleneck for
simple, but time-consuming data
retrievals in a variety of
use cases, automation
can help you expand your
data provisioning with
faster service and even let
the users access to do that
hands-off your databases!.
Automate SQL Queries and results via email
6 6
SQL
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The automated alternative:
An automated workflow that connects and retrieves data
from an SQL database, generates the retrieved data to an
output in a text format or in excel file and sends it via email
or SMS to designated user.
The workflow utilizes several actions and also includes
email notification to the admin on error.
It can be either scheduled or run on-demand per user
request (via email or SMS), without the need to involve
DBA or highly skilled IT guy to do this simple task.
See how you can ‘Automate SQL Query’ using a workflow
Automate SQL Queries and results via email
6 6
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Many Windows servers use shared
domain admin accounts to run
applications.
Security compliance regulations and
best practices suggest that
administrator account passwords
used by Windows services must be
changed every 30 to 90 days.
Normally, the credentials used by
Windows services must be manually
updated for each service on every
server. While the password update
takes place, the service is essentially
off-line.
You can get this done quicker!
Change Service Admin Account Password
7 7
A typical manual
change takes about
five minutes per
service. With 4-6
services per server,
this amounts to ~20
minutes for
changing each
server manually.
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The automated alternative:
An automated workflow that:
• Extracts the server and service list
from a text file, CMDB or any other
inventory)
• Changes the service account logon
password for each of the servers and
services
• Restarts the service as needed
• Documents the process and sends
reports
• It notifies upon success or failure of
password change
See how you can ‘Change Service Account Password’
Automating the
service account
change process,
reduces time from
minutes to
seconds, with
zero errors and
meets regulation
and compliance.
Change Service Admin Account Password
7 7
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You are probably aware of the fact that
at least 70% of security events
that cause enterprises losses
involve inside users.
The Windows system generates
log data throughout its operation,
so that if there's a problem with your
Windows system, it is probably listed
in the Event Log.
The problem is that manually tracking
issues across all Windows event logs
can take time to find and troubleshoot.
Don’t wait, start automate!
Monitor Windows Event Logs 8 8
Monitoring event logs can alert you on security threats, system or app failure, create audit reports that saves you a lot of time finding historical information
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The automated alternative:
An automated process that parses the Windows
event logs (application, security, system etc…)
and alerts about critical events of mission-critical
applications like Exchange, IIS, MS-SQL.
The process will trigger an alert to notify the
relevant person who can instantly respond to the
event and take action with no delays.
The process will also document every step in the
workflow for future investigation and statistical
reports.
This process doesn’t have to be executed using
any agent install on your machine, simply allow
WMI on your remote server.
See the ‘Monitor Windows event logs’ workflow in action
Monitor Windows Event Logs 8 8
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Automating VMware tasks using
scripting tools is possible but requires
highly skilled personnel. Scripting
tasks such as VM provisioning,
deployment, creating snapshots and
so on… might be more complicated
than seems at first.
A VM snapshot is a copy of the VM
disk file (VMDK) at a certain point in
time. It preserves the file system and
system memory of your VM by
enabling you to revert to that
snapshot in case something goes
wrong.
Snapshots can be real lifesavers when
upgrading or patching applications or
servers.
Automate VMware Tasks – Create Snapshots
9 9
Making Risky Changes If you plan to make risky changes in a VM, testing new software, take a snapshot before you begin to make those risky changes.
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So no matter if you are a newbie or
PowerCLI expert, you better start
automating this task:
Start with creating a policy for VMware
snapshot. Then design a process that
creates and/or deletes snapshots.
The workflow process will be triggered
based on your backup policy and will:
• Read a list of target virtual machines
• Create a snapshot for each selected
VM server in the list
• Delete snapshots so you keep space
for new ones. make sure this task
follows the VMware snapshots best
practice
See the ‘Create VMware snapshots’ workflow in action
Automate VMware Tasks – Create Snapshots
9 9
Remember: Snapshots can grow quite quick . As snapshots are stored on the same volume as the VM, the potential is there to run out of space quick. You should monitor for disk size and delete old snapshots as needed.
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It’s 7am and the phones are ringing in
the IT department. The email system is
down, and everyone from the CEO to
the secretary is calling to say there’s a
problem.
Thanks to monitoring system, IT already
noticed that something was wrong – but
the number of calls clarifies the impact
of the problem.
Because email is a mission-critical
system at your company, if the Level 1
support engineer cannot fix the problem
quickly within the SLA, an escalation
process should kick in.
IT departments, Help Desks, NOC team
must have escalation processes in place
at least for the mission-critical system
failures.
Incident Escalation Process 10 10
When you don’t
have escalation
process in place,
minor incidents
can turn into a
major outage
and long
nightmare!
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The automated alternative:
You should have an automated process
that includes the following steps:
• Automatically captures alert from
monitoring system
• Notifies L1 to identify the issue
severity and priority and attempt to
resolve it within the SLA
• If problem is not resolved, escalate
to L2, to fix the problem or escalate
up to L3.
• Close loop, update ticket, and notify
relevant personnel about status and
closure of that incident.
Learn more about ‘Incident escalate Incidents’ process
An escalation process is a formal process for addressing IT issues and problems when they arise.
Incident Escalation Process 10 10
Automate repetitive IT tasks in less than 5 minutes with pre-defined templates that can be customized easily to your needs.
Automate Your
Time-consuming tasks
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