opinion

Jan 16, 20265 mins

Forget the sci-fi fantasy of robots running everything. The real story isn’t about flashy tech, it’s about a smarter way to work. Hyperautomation is that smarter way: A deliberate, all-hands-on-deck strategy where organizations systematically find, prioritize and overhaul their processes. It’s the art of weaving together the right digital tools, not just to replace a single task, but to reinvent entire workflows from start to finish.

Clicking this to DevOps and SRE teams, automation is a daily reality. However, hyperautomation represents a significant step beyond standard scripts and scheduled tasks. It’s not a single software package you can buy; rather, it’s a business-driven, disciplined approach used to rapidly identify and automate as many IT and business processes as possible.

Hyperautomation involves the strategic orchestration of multiple technologies — such as AI, machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA) and event-driven architecture — to create an integrated framework for end-to-end process optimization.

Think of it as conducting a symphony, not just playing one instrument. This integrated approach brings powerful technologies together:

• RPA. Your reliable digital assistant. It tackles the tedious, repetitive work, entering data, moving files and filling forms, freeing your team from the monotony.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC). The architect behind the scenes. It ensures your infrastructure is created, configured and managed through automated, repeatable code, not manual effort. With IaC, your environments become consistent, predictable and scalable, giving your automation a rock-solid foundation to stand on.
• AI & ML. The intuition behind the operation. These tools spot patterns, make informed predictions and handle decisions that used to require human judgment.
• Natural language processing (NLP). The bridge to unstructured information. It allows systems to read between the lines, understanding text in emails, documents and forms just like a person would.
• Intelligent workflow automation. The master coordinator. It seamlessly connects tasks across different departments and software, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
• Process mining & intelligence. Your business’s x-ray vision. By analyzing digital footprints left in your systems, it reveals the hidden bottlenecks and inefficiencies you never knew existed, showing you exactly where to focus.

Where Ansible fits the ecosystem

In the hyperautomation “stack,” Ansible serves as a primary execution engine for infrastructure and configuration. If AI and workflow engines represent the “brains” making decisions, Ansible represents the “hands” that perform the actual work in the real world.

While tools like ServiceNow handle IT Service Management (ITSM) and orchestration, Ansible provides the Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) capabilities necessary to modify cloud environments, deploy clusters or patch thousands of servers across hybrid landscapes.

Differentiating hyperautomation from traditional automation

The shift from traditional methods to hyperautomation is a fundamental paradigm shift in how complexity is managed:

• Traditional automation. Typically focuses on simple, predefined tasks using script-based rule engines. These are often isolated “islands” of automation that handle structured data but stall when faced with complex, cross-departmental workflows.
• Hyperautomation. Adopts a holistic, end-to-end approach. It integrates various processes across departments, handles both structured and unstructured data, and creates systems that can learn from data and adapt to changes over time.

A practical example of this synergy is the integration between an ITSM platform (like ServiceNow) and Ansible to handle cloud infrastructure failures.

Imagine a scenario where AWS CloudWatch detects a spiking CPU on a mission-critical EC2 instance. In a traditional setup, this might trigger an email to an SRE who manually investigates. In a hyperautomated workflow:

Raul Leite

Core benefits for engineering teams

Implementing Ansible within a hyperautomation framework delivers measurable operational gains:

• Scalability. Orchestrates consistent execution across multiple instances and global operations that would otherwise be unmanageable.
• **Consistency. **Enforces policies uniformly across AWS, Azure and on-premise environments, eliminating “configuration drift”.
• Reduced human error. Minimizes the variability of manual data handling, which is a primary cause of operational disruptions.
• **Faster delivery. **Organizations can achieve a 30-50% reduction in implementation time compared to sequential manual methods.

Addressing the misconception: Ansible ≠ Hyperautomation

A common pitfall for engineering teams is assuming that “Ansible alone equals hyperautomation.” Because hyperautomation is a modular strategy, no single tool can manage the entire lifecycle.

Ansible is exceptional at execution, but a complete strategy requires integration with:

• Workflow engines/ITSM platforms. To coordinate complex sequences of interdependent tasks across teams (e.g., ServiceNow, Ivanti).
• CI/CD pipelines. To ensure that automation is part of the continuous delivery lifecycle.
• **Process intelligence tools. **To identify bottlenecks and activities suitable for automation before deployment.

Conclusion

Lastly, Ansible is a critical enabler of hyperautomation because it provides the reliable, audit-friendly execution layer needed to transform strategy into tangible action. However, it is only one instrument in the orchestra. To achieve true hyperautomation, you must surround Ansible’s execution power with the “intelligence” of AI/ML and the “orchestration” of high-level workflow platforms to create a harmonious business symphony.

If hyperautomation is like a self-driving car, the AI is the navigation system and sensors, the workflow engine is the central computer coordinating everything, and Ansible is the engine and transmission that actually moves the vehicle forward.

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Contributor

At Red Hat, Raul Leite serves as a principal solution architect, part of the largest open source software company in the world. Raul is a seasoned problem solver, architect and engineer with experience spanning the public sector, global enterprises, and diverse markets. His career has taken him from Brazil across Latin America and now into the USA, giving him a unique perspective on how open source technologies are developed, delivered and maintained to drive customer innovation worldwide.

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