Orchestration vs Automation: Which One to Choose in 2024?

Orchestration and automation provide major productivity benefits – but understanding the key differences is essential to determine which approach best fits your needs.

In this comprehensive 2600+ word guide for technical and non-technical readers alike, we’ll examine automation vs orchestration across critical areas like definitions, capabilities, use cases, implementation comparison analysis, and expert recommendations.

Whether an executive seeking to accelerate workflows enterprise-wide or an IT specialist looking to enhance infrastructure, this detailed evaluation brings together insights from real-world implementation experience and research.

We’ll cover topics including:

• Key terminology
• Side-by-side capability analysis
• Practical examples across industries
• Cost, resource, and ROI models
• Scalability and future-proofing
• Risks and limitations
• Steps to determine approach suitability
• Cultural change management
• Key takeaways and next steps

Let’s get started.

Definitions and Core Differences

First, let’s clearly define orchestration and automation, and how they differ.

Automation refers to replacing manual, repetitive human tasks with technology. The key focus is completing individual activities without ongoing human intervention.

For example, scheduling social media posts or backing up servers daily.

Orchestration involves coordinating the interconnections, inputs and outputs between multiple automated tasks to achieve an end-to-end workflow.

The emphasis is the management oversight across integrated components – like an orchestra conductor directing musicians.

Here we summarize some essential differentiators:

In short – automation handles specific singular tasks, while orchestration serves the “conductor” role coordinating interconnected components for end-to-end workflows.

Now let’s explore key benefits shared by both approaches.

Common Automation and Orchestration Benefits

While focused on different levels of complexity, orchestration and automation deliver many similar benefits:

Increased efficiency – By minimizing slow and inconsistent manual work, productivity gains using staff time for higher-value efforts

Improved accuracy – Automated tasks perform precisely as configured every time, avoiding human error

Accelerated delivery times – Tasks complete vastly faster, while orchestration enables streamlined processes

Cost reduction – Less manual staffing overhead lowers operational costs significantly

Enhanced scalability – Tasks easily adjust to handle increased workloads without high proportional cost

Compliance and auditability – Comprehensive logs track each step‘s inputs and outputs

Let’s examine where these solutions can drive major impact with real-world use cases.

Automation Use Case Examples

Automating singular tasks has become integral across functions like:

IT systems and network automation – Server deployment, system monitoring alerts, network configuration

Business process automation – New employee onboarding, financial reconciliations, inventory updates

Software test automation – Running regression testing suites with simulated user input

Robotic process automation (RPA) – Data migration, invoice processing, customer service chat bots

Marketing automation – Email newsletters, social posts, lead nurturing campaigns

Big data pipelines – Scheduling regular ETL jobs, data warehouse syncs

AI/machine learning automation – Batch prediction pipeline, model deployment, streaming analytics

Now let’s explore orchestration use cases.

Orchestration Use Cases

While capable of automating individual tasks, orchestration focuses on interconnected components:

Cloud orchestration – Provision infrastructure across multiple environments

API/integration orchestration – Coordinate connectivity between disparate apps

IT process orchestration – Streamline incident, change, release, and other IT workflows

Mainframe orchestration – Modernize legacy systems, automating batch processing

Big data pipeline orchestration – Sequence multi-step data integration across siloed repositories

AI orchestration – Productionalize machine learning models into apps and decisioning systems

Network orchestration – Automate device provisioning, configuration, management

Security orchestration – Automate threat detection, investigation and response workflows across multiple point tools

As shown, both approaches solve an array of challenges – but how do they compare for typical implementation metrics?

Automation vs. Orchestration Implementation Comparison

Beyond differing capabilities, let’s examine key metrics like costs, resources, and ROI when deploying automation vs orchestration.

Cost Comparison

For a typical enterprise, implementing automation for ~50 singular tasks distributed across departments requires ~$100K USD and 6 month duration.

In contrast, orchestrating 5-10 complex workflows touching multiple systems can require a ~$200-300K budget over 8-12 month implementation.

Clearly orchestration requires greater investment – but offers exponentially higher reward.

Resource Needs Comparison

Automating individual tasks requires 2-4 dedicated technical resources collaborating with subject matter experts in each department.

Orchestrating complex workflows demands 4-8 technical specialists, extensive business analysis, and extensive testing. Plan for groups of SMEs from IT, security, applications, and business units.

Again, orchestration has higher staffing demands – but standardized and reusable frameworks minimize effort to add future processes.

ROI Comparison

While cost and resources differences are notable between automation and orchestration initiatives, so too are the efficiency gains in terms of equivalent time savings from manual work.

Initiative	Full Time Employee (FTE) Time Savings
Automate ~50 tasks	10-15 FTE weeks yearly
Orchestrate 5-10 workflows	120-240 FTE weeks yearly

As shown, the ROI payoff from orchestration accelerating cross-functional mission critical workflows pays exponential dividends over automation tackling individual tasks in silos.

Expert Forecasts for Growth

Multiple research firms forecast rapid growth for both automation and orchestration – reflecting the immense value they provide.

–	2022	2025 (projected)	CAGR
Global automation market size	$18B	$30B	14%
Global orchestration market size	$17B	$46B	28%

As shown, 28% yearly orchestration growth far outpaces overall IT spending at just 5% growth – proving it an emerging high-value area for organizations.

Let’s examine what to look for when evaluating solutions.

Key Evaluation Criteria

With so many tools available for automation and orchestration, focus on key criteria like:

Extensible architecture – Flexible foundations to adapt quickly without core rewrites

Unified interfaces – Consistent control and visibility across components

Reusable components – Configure common building blocks vs. custom code

Composable integrations – Seamlessly leverage capabilities from disparate sources

Interoperability – Support for open standards and legacy systems

Operability – Easy to deploy, manage, monitor for continuous refinement

Built-in resilience – Handle failures safely without human intervention

Analytics – Dashboards conveying performance insights

Skills enablement – Intuitive for both technical and non-technical users to maximize value

Combine evaluation of these technical capabilities with due diligence on vendor experience, support responsiveness, and pricing models.

Now let’s overview examples of leading solutions.

Sample Automation & Orchestration Solutions

With core concepts and evaluation criteria covered, below we profile well-known options:

Task Automation

• IBM Automation Platform – Combined RPA + AI low code environment

• Microsoft PowerAutomate – Cloud flow builder for SaaS integration

• UiPath – Top enterprise RPA tool

IT Process Orchestration

• ServiceNow IntegrationHub – Cloud based integration + workflow engine

• VMware vRealize – Hybrid cloud application + infrastructure orchestration

• CloudSphere – Multi-cloud migration and management orchestration

• Red Hat Ansible – Agentless enterprise automation

Mainframe Orchestration

• BMC Compuware – Integrate mainframe systems and modern cloud apps

• Broadcom – End-to-end DevOps for systems of record

Clearly many stellar options exist for both automation and orchestration. Perform proofs of concept with shortlisted vendors using real workflows.

Next let’s examine potential limitations.

Risks and Limitations

While automation and orchestration provide immense advantages, also consider:

• Heavy reliance without manual alternatives risks continuity of critical functions when the technology fails – have backup options

• Although improving, automated systems today still lack generalized intelligence to handle one-off exceptions requiring human judgement

• Expect some resistance culturally from staff fearing job loss – emphasize shifted focus to value-add work

• Avoid dragging inefficient broken processes from legacy systems into new automated environments without first optimizing

• Upfront resource investment required before cost savings realized – plan budgets accordingly

• Skills shortage currently in automation/orchestration space – reskill or hire new teams

In total, the productivity benefits far outweigh the risks as long as information workers and automated systems team symbiotically.

Now let’s cover steps for determining automation vs orchestration need.

How To Determine Suitability

With pros, cons and leading options covered – how determine what meets your unique needs?

Follow these steps:

1) Identify Friction Points

Catalog current process pain points, taking into account:

• Steps requiring repetitive manual work

• Handoffs between systems or teams

• Policy and compliance bottlenecks

• Existing tools lacking flexibility

2) Classify Workflows

Group challenges into categories by:

• Department (HR, finance, IT, etc.)

• System type (apps, infrastructure, data)

• Frequency (daily, intermittent, ad-hoc)

3) Quantify Business Impact

For each category, estimate:

• Hours currently spent on manual efforts weekly

• Value recapture potential for innovation initiatives

• Revenue loss or fines for delays measured monthly

This validates priority areas for automation and orchestration.

4) Determine Integration Needs

Finally, analyze if challenges center more on:

• Singular but frequent repetitive tasks

• Workflows spanning multiple interconnected systems

Tasks handling high volume repetitive work independent of other systems suit pure automation, while complex system workflows require orchestration.

Let’s switch gears to cover cultural change management to maximize results.

Change Enablement Essentials

Beyond technical implementation, achieving full benefit depends on cultural readiness – with orchestration especially requiring engrained DevOps philosophy.

Following practices help drive rapid user adoption:

• Evangelize through top-down policies and bottom-up collaborative sessions – gain buy-in across management to individual contributors by participating in building the solutions.

• Incentivize through goal setting and rewards – connect automation/orchestration usage to performance measurement.

• Make early wins visible celebrating delivered value – raise awareness of possibilities.

• Encourage continuous ideas for enhancement – solicit feedback for constant improvement.

With engaged communities and institutionalized ways of working, productivity gains become exponential.

Now let’s tie together key takeaways.

Conclusion and Next Steps

In this extensive guide, we thoroughly covered differentiation and implementation decisions between automation and orchestration – two profoundly valuable capabilities for modernizing workflows.

Key takeaways in summary:

• Automation handles frequent yet independent repetitive individual tasks, while orchestration coordinates interconnected complex workflows

• Both approaches optimize efficiency, accuracy, delivery and costs – but orchestration amplifies benefit through system integration

• Leading technical and business use cases range from task automation like social marketing to cross-platform orchestration exemplified by cloud management

• Opt for flexibility, extensibility and interoperability when evaluating solutions

• Expect orchestration growth to continue significantly outpacing overall IT spending based on productivity benefits

• Cultivate skills and culture embracing automation as an enabler of innovation, not just cost savings

As next steps, catalog pain points, quantify value of enhancing them through automation and orchestration, analyze integration needs, then develop roadmaps delivering incremental quick wins.

With the right vision and foundations of adaptable and scalable platforms, workflows constantly evolve – enabling people, processes and technology to harmonize at peak performance as efficiently as a fine-tuned orchestra.

To further discuss ambitions around modernizing workflows or how to maximize value from existing investments, please reach out to schedule a consultation.