True application orchestration isn’t just about getting your workloads and processes to run. It’s about boosting their performance so that each tool is more valuable and contributes to your efficiency and business outcomes in tangible ways.
Here, we’ll explore key components, security implications and emerging trends in application orchestration and present strategies for effective implementation across your IT environments.
3 key components of application orchestration
Successful application orchestration involves the integration, automation and coordination of various IT resources. These components work synergistically to enhance operational agility, scalability and reliability in each stage of a digital transformation.
Integration
Integration is connecting disparate systems, applications and data sources. The result? A cohesive IT ecosystem where data flows smoothly between systems and your resources are well-utilized. With this capacity, you can drive stronger, more consistent decision-making processes and maintain agile responses to changing business demands.
For example, in financial services, integration supports seamless data flow between transaction processing systems and customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Customer service employees always have real-time information, and data analysts can perform accurate reporting.
Automation
Automation streamlines repetitive tasks and processes in IT environments. The most immediate outcomes of this component are fewer errors and consistent task execution. Removing manual intervention from routine tasks such as provisioning, deployment and monitoring reduces operational overhead. Plus, it increases efficiency and allows your IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives rather than day-to-day maintenance.
In the software development lifecycle, automation is particularly impactful. It can drive faster testing and deployment and ensure reliable releases.
Coordination
Effective coordination means orchestrating workflows and dependencies among different tasks and applications. Your workflows and processes should be set up to minimize bottlenecks and optimize resource allocation. When you successfully coordinate the pieces of your daily processes, it’s easier to scale your operations without compromising performance.
Consider when you might coordinate the deployment of a new open-source application (or an upgrade of an existing one) across multiple environments. Done properly, this will ensure organization-wide consistency and reduce the risk of errors.
The role of security in upholding workflows
While application orchestration streamlines operations, it can also introduce potential vulnerabilities. As you automate and integrate complex IT processes, you must integrate robust security measures to safeguard your critical IT assets and data. Otherwise, you risk disrupting business operations and compromising sensitive information via unauthorized access, data breaches and other cyber threats.
Security factors impacting orchestration
- Real-time monitoring: Continuous monitoring enables you to detect anomalies and potential security breaches before they escalate.
- Automated responses to security events: Automated workflows can isolate compromised systems, trigger alerts and initiate remediation actions without manual intervention, minimizing response times and reducing human error.
- Compliance with regulatory standards: Integrating compliance checks and controls into workflows ensures you adhere to industry regulations and standards. This includes implementing role-based access controls, audit trails and encryption protocols to protect sensitive data.
By embedding these security strategies, you can fortify your IT infrastructure against evolving cyber threats, enhance operational resilience and uphold your stakeholders’ trust and confidence.
Top trends in application orchestration
IT operations are evolving, and it’s important to stay informed about industry trends that could impact your ability to drive successful orchestration initiatives. Consider the top four below.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning integration: AI and machine learning are increasingly critical components of orchestration platforms and activities. Because these technologies can analyze vast amounts of data to predict issues before they occur, they optimize workflows and can even help you automate decision-making.
How to keep up: Choose an orchestration platform provider that’s driving innovation and incorporating AI into its roadmap. A forward-thinking company is even more critical than the features a platform currently offers.
- Multi-cloud and hybrid environments: With the growing adoption of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud technology, orchestration tools need to support seamless integration across various platforms. Having flexibility will allow you to optimize costs and avoid vendor lock-in as you expand your tech stack.
How to keep up: Seek technology providers that can support your transition to a hybrid or multi-cloud environment but aren’t exclusively for the cloud — their products should ideally work with your legacy and on-premises systems, too.
- Built-in auditing and compliance: As global and industry regulatory requirements become more stringent and complex, having built-in tools for keeping your orchestrations compliant is essential. All actions in your workflows should be logged and monitored to maintain transparency and help you prevent breaches.
How to keep up: Select a workflow orchestration solution with detailed audit trails and compliance tracking to simplify this oversight and give you peace of mind.
- Low-code/no-code automation: The rise of low-code and no-code platforms is making automation accessible to a broader range of users and extending the value of IT teams. Using intuitive visual interfaces and reusable components, you can speed up the automation development process and reduce your dependency on specialized developers.
How to keep up: To leverage this trend, choose a workload automation solution that’s designed for low-code/no-code development and provides a library of pre-built job steps.
Easily orchestrate workflows and processes with ActiveBatch
ActiveBatch by Redwood automates and orchestrates workflows across hybrid cloud environments, data centers and containerized applications. With features like centralized oversight, real-time monitoring and predictive analytics, the easy-to-use platform enhances operational visibility and efficiency for various industries and use cases.
Explore how using ActiveBatch for workload automation can streamline your organization’s application management — schedule a demo today to witness its capabilities firsthand.
Application orchestration FAQs
Application orchestration involves the automated coordination and management of complex workflows and tasks within IT environments. It integrates various systems, applications and resources to streamline operations and ensure efficient process execution. Unlike traditional manual methods, it leverages automation to optimize tasks such as application deployment, data management and system integrations across diverse platforms and environments. The outcomes: enhanced scalability, improved resource utilization and agile IT operations.
Organizations adopting modern IT practices like DevOps and continuous delivery need orchestration for seamless integration of cloud services, microservices architectures and container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes and Docker. By orchestrating workflows, businesses can achieve cost savings, accelerate application development cycles and enhance overall operational efficiency.
An example of orchestration is automating the deployment of a new software application across multiple cloud platforms like AWS or Azure. This involves using APIs to provision virtual machines, configure networking, deploy application code, set up load balancing and monitor performance metrics in real time. This process ensures the efficient execution of individual tasks, minimizes errors and optimizes resource usage, which is essential for modern IT operations.
Such orchestration scenarios are crucial in achieving scalable and streamlined software deployments and seamlessly integrating diverse IT environments. Utilizing orchestration platforms such as ActiveBatch facilitates rapid scalability, enhances operational efficiency and maintains consistency across hybrid cloud infrastructures.
Orchestration refers to the automated coordination and management of complex tasks and workflows within IT environments. In cloud computing, orchestration automates the provisioning, deployment and scaling of resources based on workload demands, optimizing resource utilization and enhancing operational efficiency.
In practical terms, orchestration platforms like ActiveBatch enable organizations to deploy, manage and monitor workflows across hybrid IT infrastructures. This includes orchestrating application deployments, data transfers and job scheduling tasks to ensure consistency and reliability while adapting to dynamic business needs.
An example of process orchestration is the automation and coordination of tasks involved in customer order processing in an e-commerce platform. Using an orchestration platform like ActiveBatch, the process starts with receiving an order through the website. The orchestration tool automatically triggers various tasks, such as inventory checks, payment processing and shipping label generation. It coordinates these tasks across different systems and departments, ensuring each step executes efficiently and correctly.
By orchestrating this process, organizations can achieve faster order fulfillment, reduce errors and provide a seamless customer experience. An orchestration platform handles the complexities of integrating systems like ERPs for inventory updates, payment gateways for transaction processing and logistics for shipment tracking. This automation improves operational efficiency and allows businesses to scale their operations effectively during peak demand periods.
