What is a SOAP according to Gartner?

Gartner says that Service Orchestration and Automation Platform (SOAP) "have become crucial for deploying complex workloads that deliver business services. These platforms combine workflow orchestration, workload automation and resource provisioning and extend capabilities to data pipelines and cloud-native architectures." There are six key SOAP capabilities: Application workflow orchestration simplifies recurring tasks and processes across multiple applications and environments to advance digital transformations. Event-driven automation facilitates immediate actions in response to specific events or triggers, including systems alerts and user activities. Scheduling, monitoring, visibility and alerting provides comprehensive oversight and real-time monitoring of automated tasks and workflows. Self-service automation fosters independence by giving all users the ability to manage automated workflows. Resource provisioning optimizes the allocation and management of IT resources like servers, storage and network capacity through automation. Data flow management oversees the movement and transformation of data, even big data workloads, across diverse systems. Thus, SOAPs have much more expansive functionality than limited job scheduling and workload automation tools. Traditional workload automation solutions are limited in their ability to adapt to modern use cases. SOAPs, in contrast, are versatile enough to accommodate application architectures, cloud-native infrastructure and data pipelines. They’re ideal for driving DevOps initiatives because they integrate with various toolchains. For infrastructure and operations leaders (I&O leaders), SOAPs play a crucial role in standardizing digital business processes. They empower IT teams to deploy agile business services that support customer-focused agility.

What is Gartner SOAP Magic Quadrant™?

A Magic Quadrant™ provides a graphical competitive positioning of four types of technology providers in markets where growth is high and provider differentiation is distinct: Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well-positioned for tomorrow. Visionaries understand where the market is going or have a vision for changing market rules, but do not yet execute well. Niche Players focus successfully on a small segment or are unfocused and do not out-innovate or outperform others. Challengers execute well today or may dominate a large segment but do not demonstrate an understanding of market direction.

Don’t Let The Wrong Workload Automation Solution Hamper Your IT Goals

Download our new eBook, “Workload Automation Buyer’s Guide,” to see how you can find the right solution that supports your long-term goals

Get Your Resource Here

About This eBook

Today’s WLA market includes a variety of vendors big and small, offering products that can either accelerate your automation strategy or hold you back.

The relationship between you and your vendor is critical. Working with the wrong vendor and product can mean you’re forced to implement another solution in a few years, costing your team precious time and resources while slowing down your ability to achieve your larger automation initiatives.

More than just features and capabilities, the support, resources and product investment of the vendor plays a critical role in your buying decision.

Workload Automation Buyer's Guide: Why The Right Tool Is About More Than Features

Learn more about assessing workload automation vendors, including:

Using a product roadmap to determine a product’s long-term viability
How a vendor’s history can be a good indicator of reliability and innovation
Why customer success teams can be key to high ROI and expanding your use cases