Benefits of an RPA Infrastructure Check-up – Is your RPA Software Up to Date?

Robotic process automation platforms and RPA software evolve quickly. You may be due for an RPA Infrastructure check-up. Keeping up to date with these changes is often overlooked and can have both functionality and security implications. There are some risks to consider when doing infrastructure updates, and we will walk you through how to manage them.  If you are preparing to scale up your automation suite, it’s time to consider keeping automation hosted locally or moving to cloud-based infrastructures.

Why it’s important to keep your RPA software up to date

Many organizations are running older versions of their automation platforms. These old versions pose many challenges to both established Automation CoE’s and programs that are trying to scale. Beyond not having the latest and greatest features, outdated versions can present legitimate security risks to the organization. For optimum performance, it is imperative that your RPA platforms are up to date. Application upgrades, updates, and patches provide you with the following benefits:

• Ensure your security – Security flaws are often resolved through upgrades and smaller dot version patches. By not updating your platforms, you may be exposing your or your clients’ data to bad actors, and yourself to legal action. Protect your data, protect yourself.
• Enable your workforce – Platform version upgrades often include new features and enhancements that allow your workforce to work better, deliver more value, and take on larger challenges. Delaying the rollout of these features can suppress potential use cases and limit the effectiveness of your developers.
• Optimize your workflow performance– Updates and patches enable continuous performance improvement even if new features are not coming out. Whether this be an interaction with other applications (browsers) or memory allocation, these optimizations enable your RPA software to run as efficiently as possible before being upgraded.  

Considerations when updating your RPA Software Version

While extremely important, there are risks and decisions to make while completing platform upgrades. Especially if you are catching up and upgrading more than one version number.

• Integrations with other automations and software – 
  Part of your RPA infrastructure check-up will be to confirm if all  your automations are on the same platform or running the same version numbers. Workarounds, API pulls, and non-platform connections to other software may break in these updates. Take time to consider if the updates to your platform can allow you to standardize and use in-system connections.
• Backups – Make sure that you have a stable version to roll back to should an unexpected problem arise during an update. Some teams choose to do in-place upgrades while others choose to lift and shift.

Larger RPA Infrastructure Choices – Cloud vs Local Server

In the past, on-premise physical servers were the only way to go. In the new world of organizations spanning multiple locations and often including outsourced or offshore staff, that is changing. 

Only clients with specific data management security demands need to stay with on-prem solutions… and even that is changing.  

Now is a great time to consider moving to the cloud. Let’s explore the advantage of the flexibility cloud infrastructure provides and understand all your options. With the cloud, you have access to more processing power, and can spin up or connect to different technologies more easily. Cloud RPA infrastructures are easier to adjust for scale and demand, with no physical hardware to purchase or install. WonderBotz and most platform vendors now offer cloud versions of their software and are receptive to adjusting existing on-prem subscriptions to cloud-based.

Things to consider when making a cloud migration

First, determine your cloud provider (vendor provided or multi-tenant platform such as AWS). Then create a catalog of your existing automations and platforms, to ensure they are compatible with and secure in your new cloud. This is also a great time to consider what your automation goals are for the future. Explore how much you want to scale your RPA program and what new technologies are available to augment your current automation stack.  

Next, set up a QA environment and regression test your automations to ensure that they are cloud ready. This work spans across developers, technology partners, and business units to ensure that your business-critical automations do not fail when you flip the switch. Even then, it is important to leverage resources who are experienced in automation migrations and can help you avoid common pitfalls in cloud migrations. Whether that is with a little bit of help, or considering a fully managed migration.

Benefits of Moving to a Fully Managed Cloud Infrastructure

When major updates are needed, it may be preferable to move to a fully managed platform infrastructure. Stop unreliable on-prem or cloud infrastructure preventing your team from achieving its automations goals. Ensure organization-wide updates will not destabilize your automations. Feel secure in the knowledge that your automation pipeline is benefitting from the latest technology updates and features.

Our team of experts can ensure a smooth experience and that your automations will be working as good as, if not better, than before. We provide clients with white glove experience that will ensure all automations are regression tested and there is no drop off in performance.    

Our turn-key managed INVOKE ARIA Cloud provides built-for-purpose automation infrastructure designed with your solutions in mind. All application upgrades and infrastructure updates are handled by our team of experts who ensure the uptime of your automations.    

INVOKE ARIA Cloud is flexible. If you need more capacity, we can easily add more bots and virtual machines to run your new automations. Do you have a work surge and need more bots in a pinch? Our team can help you there as well with our on-demand bots. We take the guess work out of infrastructure and allow your team to focus on what they do best, developing high quality automations.

Use the form below to connect with our team for your RPA Infrastructure Check-up