Pay As You Grow Automation

The IT landscape is evolving faster than ever before, and the move to cloud-based solutions has emerged as a game-changer for businesses looking to future-proof their infrastructure.   However, the move to cloud solutions is not all plain sailing and comes with its own challenges due to the change in management access.

For example, Microsoft 365 / Office 365 saves companies the headache of operating Exchange, SharePoint and Teams infrastructure.   However, the management of users and permissions is still laborious, from creating users to adding users to groups, assigning a license, to disabling a user.

This now needs to be done from within a complex Web UI or via a PowerShell prompt, and many of the tasks require the users to be a global administrator to perform the necessary actions and, in most cases, require senior staff who have the necessary admin access and expertise to fulfil the provision requests.

With this in mind, it’s not surprising that organizations are increasingly looking for ways to automate these manual processes and make senior staff available to work on critical initiatives. Automation enables junior staff to fulfil requests on behalf of users or even allow end-users to request things directly for themselves, wherever suits them.

With the growth of AI, the desire for automated outcomes is only going to increase.

The challenge for many companies is how they get going with automation, as it has traditionally required significant investment before companies see any benefits, but the great news is that things have changed. Keep reading to learn how Kelverion are enabling all companies to get immediate benefits from automation projects.

What are the options for automation platforms?

In the decades our team have been working in automation, the biggest reason why companies struggle to get the benefits of automation is that the costs of purchasing an automation platform can be very high from the outset. Unfortunately, this appears to equally apply to dedicated automation tools or automation extensions to the Service Desk already in place.

Organisations don’t get any benefits from automation until they have something working and the large upfront costs mean taking a leap of faith before you see any benefits.

Equally, when companies started with automation, thought wasn’t given to the bigger strategic picture of what could we / do we need to automate.

Often, companies get fixated on one use case and automating that one process and select a tool that can’t automate beyond that one process.   This is often due to a lack of foresight but, equally, a narrow focus on instant returnable benefits from an initial cost. A toolset with a broader capability will usually require a larger investment and deliver return on investment over a longer time period, as each use case is implemented.

What organizations desire is the ability to purchase automation on a pay as you grow basis

Pay as you grow automation

When discussing pay as you grow automation it is worth noting that  Microsoft have multiple options in this space:

Power Automate – RPA (Robotic Process Automation) platform

Power Automate is an RPA tool that automates application-to-application data transfer and orchestrates business processes within the Microsoft 365 toolset.

Read more about Power Automate here.

Logic Apps – Integration Platform as a Service
While Power Automate is an RPA tool, Logic Apps is an Integration Platform as a Service. It helps automate and orchestrate tasks, business processes, and workflows when there is a need to integrate data across enterprises or organizations.

Read more about Logic Apps here.

Azure Automation
The hidden gem in the Microsoft automation stable for pay as you grow automation is Azure Automation.

Azure Automation is a cloud-based automation as a service offering from Microsoft where there are no upfront costs, you only pay whilst the automation is executing and Microsoft charges 0.002 Dollars per execution minute, which, if you left it running for every minute for every day of a standard month would cost you $90 a month, and as automation isn’t executing 24×7 your costs will be a lot lower than that.

With over 800 Vendor-Supported PowerShell Integration Modules available, there are numerous options for integrations covering both Microsoft and other vendor products and services.

For those familiar with Microsoft’s System Center Orchestrator, Azure Automation has all the capabilities of Orchestrator and, being a modern PowerShell-based platform, adds new capabilities which are not easily available in Orchestrator, such as global deployment, cross-region resiliency, GIT integration for collaborative working, and change management.

Learn more about Azure Automation in our ‘What is Azure Automation’ blog.

Kelverion’s Automation

Kelverion’s approach to automation is different to other players.  Rather than have a costly base system we partner with Microsoft to build out a comprehensive automation suite around Microsoft’s Azure Automation platform.

The Kelverion automation suite that surrounds Azure Automation consists of:

• Runbook Studio
  • No Code – Low Code authoring environment for Azure Automation
  • Familiar interface for current Orchestrator users
  • Powerful tools for building, managing, and testing azure runbooks.
• Smart Integration Modules
  • Supported Enterprise Class Integration Modules
  • Provide design time information about integration target.
• Automation Portal
  • Self Service Portal for people to request that automated tasks are performed.
• Automation Solutions

You can design, test, and manage your automation with Kelverion and rely on the power and security of Microsoft to deliver your ‘Automation as a Service’ platform anywhere in the world.

Pay as you grow automation as a service via Azure Marketplace

Users can design, test, and manage automations with Kelverion and rely on the power and security of Microsoft to deliver your ‘automation as a service’ on a pay as you grow basis anywhere in the world.

Until now the Runbook Suite has been available from Kelverion as a yearly subscription, we are delighted to introduce its availability via the Azure Marketplace with monthly billing to reduce the upfront costs for customers and deliver a true pay as you grow automation offering.

Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace is an online store for Microsoft partner solutions built on or for Azure and intended for customers to easily purchase and deploy Microsoft and partner solutions on a pay as you go basis. Buyers can access Azure Marketplace in the Azure portal or the Azure Marketplace online store online. Find Kelverion’s offerings on the Azure Marketplace here.

When you purchase through Azure Marketplace, the complexity of managing individual vendor relationships and invoices is eliminated. Buyers receive a single, consolidated monthly bill from Microsoft that includes both your Azure Marketplace purchases and your Azure charges. If a purchase is made using an Enterprise Agreement (EA), all purchases are included in your Azure invoice. If you purchase products using a credit card associated with your Azure account, all purchases are consolidated on a single invoice and billed to the credit card of your choice.

With these marketplace offers buyers are contracting and buying through Microsoft, and all costs are invoiced directly by Microsoft.   This removes all the headaches of procurement contracts, resellers and renewals, all of this is handled directly by Microsoft through your existing arrangements and the monthly recurring billing mechanism.

Make the most of pay as you grow automation offerings

Along with this pay as you grow automation model for Azure Automation and Kelverion, we can also assist you in leveraging Microsoft’s two other automation pay as you go tools:

• Logic Apps – Microsoft’s Integration Platform as a Service tool, for business application integration and automation of data processing
• Power Automate – Microsoft’s RPA (Robotic Process Automation) platform based around the Microsoft 365 toolset

Using these two tools and Azure Automation, Kelverion can help you deliver complete end-to-end automation for virtually any use case your business might require.