The rise of Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAPs)

Written by: Darrell Maronde
4 Min Read
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Automation technology is ever-evolving. In the world of enterprise automation, the role of Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAPs) continues to grow.

This isn’t simply another name for workload automation solutions (WLA solutions). Rather, Gartner® describes SOAPs as solutions that encompass the capabilities required to integrate, coordinate and manage complex workflows and processes across IT. Infrastructure and operations leaders (I&O leaders) can use these advanced tools to design and implement end-to-end workflows by unifying workload automation, resource provisioning and data pipelines across hybrid digital infrastructures.

SOAPs can adapt to cloud-native infrastructure and application architecture, unlike legacy job scheduling and workload automation tools. These capabilities integrate with DevOps toolchains to provide better agility so businesses can quickly develop IT automation strategies that directly improve customer outcomes and experiences.

The 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report states that “by 2029, 90% of organizations currently delivering workload automation will be using service orchestration and automation platforms (SOAPs) to orchestrate workloads and data pipelines in hybrid environments across IT and business domains.” 

The evolution and impact of modern orchestration tools

The 2025 Gartner Critical Capabilities for SOAP report states that, “The service orchestration and automation platform (SOAP) market is mature, with vendors differentiated by core capabilities, innovation, integration breadth, use-case support and market responsiveness.“

Many WLA tools have evolved to offer SOAP capabilities to keep up with enterprise demands. Instead of focusing only on core workflows in siloed domains, SOAPs automate workflows that span diverse domains, including cloud-based and big data applications. These include complex IT processes, large volumes of file transfers, orchestration of data pipelines and extract, transform, load (ETL) processes.

Minimizing complexity and increasing speed and agility with a single platform to manage all business processes is far more efficient than relying on a mix of separate tools.

Benefits and use cases of SOAPs

SOAPs enable both IT teams and business users to take advantage of real-time, event-driven orchestration of business services. This capability is increasingly essential for businesses to respond quickly and decisively to customer needs. Event-driven automationruns processes the instant they are needed instead of waiting for a pre-scheduled time.

They also provide self-service automation tools and integrate with other platforms, systems, data centers and more via APIs and built-in connectors.

SOAPs offer:

  • Increased agility: Responding to shifting business and market demands and customer preferences is essential today. With the breadth of a SOAP, IT teams can rapidly adjust.
  • Cost savings: A SOAP streamlines operations and reduces the need for manual intervention in mundane tasks and processes such as billing, appointment scheduling and more.
  • Seamless coordination: Cross-departmental collaboration for critical operations like IT service management and data management is easier and more efficient with a SOAP.
  • Improved customer experience: SOAPs support both internal, SLA-focused tasks and customer-facing automation, such as real-time order tracking or automated customer service workflows.

The power of SOAPs is clear in a variety of industries and use cases. For example, retailers can use SOAPs to orchestrate inventory management, customer orders or supply chain operations. Those in the finance sector can streamline regulatory compliance, fraud detection and transaction processing. Utility companies can monitor and maintain power grids or water systems, detecting faults and resolving outages quickly.

Access advanced orchestration capabilities with a Gartner SOAP Leader

It’s important to choose the right SOAP solution. We believe this means choosing one that’s been recognized.

Redwood Software is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report for the third year in a row, positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision. We believe this recognition affirms the real-world impact our platform delivers as enterprises navigate the shift to agentic orchestration.

Redwood’s WLA solutions, including RunMyJobs by Redwood, deliver SOAP capabilities for hybrid-cloud, multi-application IT environments and support event-driven business models. With RunMyJobs’ SaaS delivery, you’ll have the reliability and scalability you need without the maintenance effort and cost.

Find out how RunMyJobs meets the needs of digital businesses now and in the future: Book a demo.

Magic Quadrant is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

About The Author

Darrell Maronde's Avatar

Darrell Maronde

Darrell Maronde is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Redwood’s workload automation solutions. He has more than 15 years of product marketing experience with on-prem and SaaS software, including solutions for IT and operations.

Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms FAQs

What are service orchestration and automation platforms?

Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAPs) are advanced software solutions that coordinate and automate complex workflows across an organization’s IT and business environments. SOAPs enable seamless integration of different systems, applications and processes by orchestrating tasks in a specific sequence and automating repetitive actions.

Using SOAPs, enterprises can manage and monitor processes that span multiple technologies and environments, such as on-premises, cloud and hybrid infrastructure, all from a centralized platform.

SOAPs are built to handle a wide range of automation needs, from simple task automation to more complex workflows that involve various services, dependencies and business rules. They provide visibility into the entire process lifecycle to optimize performance, reduce operational risk and improve scalability.

What is orchestration vs. automation?

While orchestration and automation are closely related and contribute to digital transformation, they are distinct concepts of IT operations.

Automation refers to the process of using software to perform individual tasks or steps without human intervention. For example, running a script to back up files daily or automatically provisioning a virtual machine when needed. Automation eliminates repetitive manual tasks, saving time and reducing human error.

Orchestration involves coordinating and managing multiple automated tasks into a cohesive workflow. It’s the process of arranging individual automated steps to ensure they happen in a specific order or sequence.

For example, in a business workflow, orchestration could involve automating the process of receiving an order, triggering inventory updates and initiating shipping.

What are the main pillars of SOAPs?

According to the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report, the six mandatory features, or key capabilities, of SOAPs are:

  1. Management of workloads in complex technology and deployment topologies: This includes supporting mission-critical workload automation of IT processes in various combinations and configurations of internally developed applications, including the support of enterprise commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products. This also includes infrastructure deployments, including on-premises, cloud, colocation, software as a service (SaaS), and edge locations.
  2. End-to-end operational continuity: This includes request management, integration between IT software platforms and end-user enablement, data pipeline orchestration, citizen developer enablement, and DevOps pipeline integration.
  3. Broad integration and extensibility: Platforms must offer a plug-and-play architecture that incorporates disparate technology landscapes, from mainframe systems to modern enterprise applications, leveraging deep API integration and prebuilt connectors.
  4. Flexible workflow design: This includes providing a visual workflow designer, a code-based designer, and a library to create and reuse workflow templates. Additionally, it needs to support version control and collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on workflows simultaneously and track changes.
  5. Intelligent remediation and resilience: The platform ensures stability by moving beyond reactive error handling to autonomous resilience. It leverages real-time observability to proactively detect anomalies and trigger self-healing actions, such as intelligent retries, stateful rollbacks, or automated scaling. This minimizes disruption and maintains data integrity through intelligent recovery, ensuring mission-critical reliability without manual intervention.
  6. Governance: To support self-service, platforms must have embedded security guardrails that automatically enforce compliance, role-based access control, and encryption across every automated task.