Last week (November 2 – 4) I was at Automic World in Orlando – and to put it briefly: It was FANTASTIC. It was my second time this year at the Automic World Conference and I can only recommend that every Automic user attend at least one of these conferences each year.
You would learn so much about the Automic products. You would also meet so many cool customers and Automic employees. The cost is well worth it!
My Automic World 2016 Prelude
Prior to the conference – Monday through Wednesday – I conducted a workshop for conference attendees. That’s why I already flew to Orlando on Sunday, October 10. At the airport in Frankfurt I happened to run into a few of my previous workshop participants who were also on their way to the conference. That gave us an opportunity to indulge in a few reminiscences.
By the way, the workshop before Automic World went beautifully – again many thanks to my great participants! I hope that our focused work and learning has been worthwhile for all!
The conference kickoff on Wednesday after lunch brought the first test. Do you remember my report on Automic World in Berlin? I was talking trash about the Automic World App because, in my view, it was useful only for smart phone stress tests. And now, of course, the question was: Can the Orlando version app do more?
The answer clearly is: “Yes!“ The app functioned beautifully. I could connect with other participants, look at the agenda, and even prepare a daily personal schedule. This allowed me to start the conference perfectly organized.
Top Presentations at Automic World
Todd DeLaughter kicked off the presentations with a talk about “Driving Agility into Your Digital Transformation with Automation”. The seminar room was filled to the rafters.
I especially liked one of Todd’s statements:
“You can automate everything. The challenge is to prioritize.“
As often before, my favorite presentation was again the one by Gwyn Clay on the Automic Roadmap. Because, as the saying goes: post-release is pre-release. While we are still enjoying V12 and its features, Automic is already busy working on V12.1 which is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2017. Here is a (surely not complete) list of highlights from Gwyn’s presentation:
- Automic is working on a solution for the central management of several AE Systems.
- In the future, the AE could also run on an open source database. In his presentation, Gwyn mentioned MySQL and PostgreSQL as possibilities – however, I’m having trouble visualizing MySQL as an appropriate candidate.
- There will be an official, complete Rest API. I’ll be making a few remarks regarding the inofficial open source Rest API shortly.
- A critical path analysis will be integrated into the Engine.
- The SLA Management will be expanded.
- Also, Analytics will be developed further; plans are to integrate external data sources into Analytics.
- With “Data Driven Event Processing” the AE will be able to use analyses of large data volumes to react to complex events. At first, it is planned as a licensing option and it is the first step toward “Intelligent Automation“. Generally at this conference, the popular buzz phrases “Artificial Intellgence”, “Machine Learning” and “Neuronal Networks” were mentioned a lot.
A great technical presentation came from Brendan Sapience about the various Automic interfaces and APIs. I’ve been planning for some time to write an article about Brendan’s cool work, and his presentation has newly motivated me. Brendan is the Solutions Architect on the Automic Pre-Sales Team in the USA. He has published a bunch of great stuff on Git Hub – among other things, an open source Rest API and an open source commandline interface.
Here is a link to his Git Hub page: brendanSapiens
I used most of Friday to concentrate on my presentation, but still did not want to miss the keynotes by Gerry Leitao (CapGemini) and John Purrier (Automic CTO). Both spoke on the subjects of digital transformation and the future of automation.
CapGemini operates AE as a service provider in the cloud and has linked the AE with Amazon’s Alexa. Gerry Leitao demonstrated what is already possible today: In his demo, he spoke about an Amazon echo with his AE which has triggered and confirmed processes.
Away from the Presentations
This conference also offered an exhibit room with booths by Automic Support, Automic University and Development. A special eye catcher for me was the informational sign at the AWI booth; it looked like the sign with the new name of the Web interface did not get finished in time…
In addition to presentations and exhibits, this conference also offered something special: Disney World, of course! Wednesday evening we celebrated a sort of beach part in the “Typhoon Lagoon”, a water park with the world’s largest wave pool – unfortunately, we were not allowed in the pool 🙁
To make up for that, I went to Adventure Island with a few people from Automic on Friday. It was a lot of fun and a worthy conclusion to – I can only repeat it – a fantastic week in Orlando.
Finally, a tip for you: Next year the Automic World is held in Dallas, and the early-bird registration phase is supposed to be starting already in December. Keep your eyes peeled for it at http://automicworld.automic.com!
Best to register immediately, and book the DB Workshop right along with it.
