Microsoft recently announced the preview of Azure Automation.  Created by the Microsoft System Center team, Azure Automation enables customers to automate the creation, deployment, monitoring, and maintenance of resources in your Azure environment using a highly-scalable and reliable workflow execution engine.

The service can be used to orchestrate the time-consuming and repetitive tasks customers otherwise accomplish manually across Azure and third-party systems to decrease operational expense for your cloud operations.

According to Microsoft, Automation enables the ability to:

• Integrate:  Import or build Windows PowerShell modules to enable integrating across Azure and third-party systems
• Orchestrate:  Author flexible Windows PowerShell Runbooks to accelerate time to value
• Automate:  Deliver resources faster through automation of manual tasks

Sound interesting?  Useful?  For more information on Automation, visit the Automation webpage or visit the Automation: Getting Started guide.