Why A Modern SaaS WLA Platform Is The Best Fit For Cloud Modernization
As you move more workloads to the cloud, you want to be sure your workload automation (WLA) platform is still up to the task. Even if your current platform has been doing wonders for your business processes, it will become a liability if it’s not designed for the cloud. In this post, I’ll explain why a modern Software as a Service (SaaS) WLA platform is a much better option in today’s business environments, especially if you’re implementing a cloud modernization strategy.
What is a Modern SaaS WLA Platform?
Influenced by the increased adoption of cloud modernization, many WLA platform vendors now market their solutions as SaaS. This is supposed to imply their solutions offer cloud benefits like scalability, flexibility, and low cost, and can easily integrate with cloud-based applications and services in addition to the on-premise applications and systems that their WLA platform already supports.
While those implied claims about their cloud capabilities may be true to a certain extent, not all WLA platforms are built from a cloud-modern architecture and hence aren’t what you would classify as “Modern SaaS”. That’s a big difference.
So what exactly are the benefits of being a modern SaaS WLA platform? Let’s talk about that next.
Key Advantages of a Modern SaaS WLA Platform
Let’s now take a closer look into the benefits of a modern SaaS WLA platform and see why it’s a game-changer for cloud modernization initiatives and for your business in general.
Inherently scalable
One of the major reasons you’d be embarking on a cloud modernization strategy is so you could take advantage of the cloud’s superior scalability compared to an on-premise IT infrastructure. You would need that scalability to support increasing users, computing demand, workloads, etc.
Ironically, despite being deployed in the cloud, many SaaS WLA platforms don’t scale well. As soon as processing demands increase, many of these platforms require additional licensing to provision more cloud resources and often call for the installation of additional processing capacity on your network to support the WLA agents.
A modern SaaS WLA doesn’t depend on on-premise components to scale and can in fact scale effortlessly without human intervention, as it’s built to automatically draw from the virtually unlimited processing power and capacity of the underlying cloud infrastructure.
Lower and more flexible costs
Another benefit associated with SaaS is reduced cost. SaaS solutions are known to have zero infrastructure costs and follow flexible pricing models, which when combined translate to a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than their on-premise counterparts.
Some SaaS WLA platforms notoriously fail in this regard. Many of them still follow traditional and rigid licensing models because behind the scenes they’re still running their traditional software. Moreover, as your workloads and WLA demands grow, these platforms tend to require additional and highly unpredictable costs for additional installations, maintenance, infrastructure, and licenses.
Modern SaaS WLA platforms are devoid of these cost complexities. From a licensing perspective, you just pay for the number of jobs you run. Further, they won’t require significant infrastructure in your network to operate and maintain, only a few self-contained and self-updating agents.
Less administratively burdensome
Since non-modern SaaS WLA platforms require more infrastructure in your network, including agents, middleware and databases, you must also keep up with several administrative tasks associated with that infrastructure such as installation and maintenance as well as license management, which can put additional strain on your already overburdened IT admins.
By contrast, a modern SaaS WLA solution is completely free of these administrative burdens. This means those admins can take on additional responsibilities, focus more on business-critical tasks, and pursue innovative projects.
Highly reliable
WLA platforms must be reliable enough to support mission-critical business processes. Unfortunately, the sheer complexity of a non-modern SaaS WLA platform makes it extremely difficult to incorporate high availability capabilities that would minimize the risk of downtime.
A modern SaaS WLA platform, on the other hand, possesses high availability and disaster recovery capabilities right out of the box. The platform inherits these capabilities from its underlying cloud infrastructure.
Robustly secure
Many business processes involve sensitive data. Since a WLA platform automates business processes, it often interfaces with these types of data through connections with applications, systems, databases, cloud services, and so on. As such, your WLA platform has to be highly secure.
When a non-modern SaaS WLA platform connects to on-premise applications, systems, and databases, it normally requires multiple open ports on your network firewall. This can expose your network to external threats.
A modern SaaS WLA platform is less susceptible to cyber risks because it tightly integrates with built-in security features (e.g., encryption, firewalls, multi-factor authentication, etc.) of its underlying cloud. In fact, RunMyJobs, a modern SaaS WLA platform that we’ll be discussing later, doesn’t require any open firewall ports.
Now that we’ve explained the benefits of using a modern SaaS WLA platform, we’d like to introduce you to RunMyJobs.
RunMyJobs – A Modern SaaS WLA Platform Primed For Any Cloud Modernization Undertaking
Built as a modern SaaS WLA platform, RunMyJobs by Redwood is endowed with all the qualities mentioned above. Compared to other WLA platforms that are only “SaaS” by name, RunMyJobs is substantially more scalable, affordable, reliable, and administration-free.
You can use it to run millions of transactions every day and still enjoy impressive levels of performance and uptime without worrying about managing, maintaining, or updating the underlying infrastructure.
RunMyJobs can connect to any tech stack, regardless whether it be on-premise legacy servers, applications, and systems, or modern SaaS services. It has no problem supporting hybrid or multi cloud environments and seamlessly integrates with SAP and Oracle systems with the broadest and deepest collection of connectors.
RunMyJobs’ extensive connection/integration and business automation capabilities coupled with its intrinsic cloud capabilities as a modern SaaS WLA platform make it ideal for your cloud modernization initiatives.
Learn how RunMyJobs can support your cloud modernization journey. Get a demo now