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Communications of the ACM

Practice

Automation Should Be Like Iron Man, Not Ultron


Iron Man

Credit: Sahachat Saneha / Shutterstock.com

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Q: Dear Tom: A few years ago we automated a major process in our system administration team. Now the system is impossible to debug. Nobody remembers the old manual process and the automation is beyond what any of us can understand. We feel like we've painted ourselves into a corner. Is all operations automation doomed to be this way?

A: The problem seems to be this automation was written to be like Ultron, not Iron Man.


 

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