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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