I’m a big fan of automation. I’ve been in IT for 27 years now. One unchanging rule during that time is there is always more to do than there is time to do it. Automation helps close that gap. And when I can automate something, I can do more than peers who can’t. That gives me a competitive advantage. So, three cheers for automation. 

However, the reality is that a lot of administration is still manual. It may sound clever to say that if it’s not automat-able it’s not something you want a part of or that you’re not a player in some space because you don’t automate. But that’s not reality. 

For instance, people can choose to use the cloud and not automate. One reason that the cloud was advertised in the first place was to reduce on-premise costs. You could move to cloud servers and shutdown your costly datacenter and save. You didn’t have to change your day-to-day activities and you would still likely save. That’s not always true, as some startups have shown the math of switching to their own servers when reaching a certain capacity point. But that’s not the point. The point is you should be able to use the cloud even if you aren’t going to automate. 

It may not be as efficient or as cost-effective, but it still should be doable. There may be other business drivers that prevent IT from embracing automation. In the real world, that happens. It happens a lot. There are a finite number of resources. And if business determines that you as a resource would be better spent building out something new rather than automating something existing, then you are building something new. That’s reality. 

So when I hear about a new technology like Nano, I can like it without jumping on the automation bandwagon. Look, you just told me it’s compartmentalized and there’s a lot of surface area removed, even when compared to Windows Server Core. From a security perspective, I am doing a happy dance. I agree that automation makes it better. But just because your vision is automation, automation, automation, doesn’t mean it is everyone’s. And when there are other factors to consider, they may be right for what they are trying to do.