5 cloud orchestration technologies explained

Simon Edward • 18 November 2024

Want the cloud to work harder? Orchestration is the way. Let's start by exploring 5 types of orchestration tech.

The cloud, they say, is a paragon of efficiency. Migrate to the cloud, they say, and your business will become more productive, more profitable and a darn sight easier to manage.

"But", you may well ask yourself, "how?"

There are several answers to this question, many of which we've covered before. But to cut a long story short, the cloud has two silver linings.

The first is that it delivers operational benefits that will be felt across all areas of your business. The second manifests as tools and technologies that, while no less impactful, will be most keenly appreciated by your IT team.

Orchestration is among the most useful and versatile of these technologies. It is, like the conductor's baton, the tool that lets your systems and services play together with perfect timing.

But there's a wide variety of orchestration methodologies out there – and an even broader selection of tools to help you take advantage of them.

If you're interested in this aspect of cloud computing, it's worth getting to grips with the different types of orchestration methodologies. With a firm grasp of the facts, you'll be equipped to choose the best options for your organisation's goals and the specific needs of your IT staff.

This article will help you do just that. But first, let's break down the basics.

What is orchestration, exactly?

In a previous post, we compared cloud orchestration to managing a basketball team. The players are the individual, automated tasks that make up a workflow. But their manager is the orchestrator: it's they who write the rules that determine how the players interact, shoot hoops and win the day.

Or, to put it another way, an orchestrated process is a flowchart. You provide an input – the press of a button, say, or an exit code – and it runs through a series of tasks and checks until it produces the desired output.

It's all quite simple. But the beauty of orchestration lies in the complex possibilities of that flowchart and the flexibility of its outcomes.

Using orchestration, for instance, you can streamline common IT tasks, automate resource scaling, deploy containerised applications, manage multi-cloud security and much more. With a little orchestrational wizardry, you can even create self-service portals for users to carry out customised tasks quickly, efficiently and without a single line of code.

Picture of someone sitting back at their desk.

By now, the benefits should be clear. Orchestration speeds things up, frees up time and reduces the possibility of human error. Use it wisely and you can expect better agility, more efficiency and improved visibility of tasks – with a raft of cost savings to boot.

How you go about achieving this is a different matter. Orchestration tools range from dazzlingly complex to "your dog could probably manage it with a bit of training". Let's explore five of them.

Types of orchestration tools

1. Infrastructure as code tools

Infrastructure as code (IaC) is a methodology for data centre resource management and DevOps management. It involves using machine-readable scripts to automate the provisioning of servers, virtual machines, configurations and so on.

One obvious downside of IaC tools is that they use, well, code. Writing scripts requires a certain amount of technical knowledge to begin with – and with code comes syntax errors and testing and debugging cycles. These hurdles only become harder to jump as your codebase grows.

But, of course, there are upsides too. Code is more or less infinitely flexible – and for an experienced programmer, preferable to GUI-driven tools. Give them a keyboard and some strong coffee and they can achieve much more, more quickly.

IaC is also very scalable and repeatable – and it comes with version control capabilities that facilitate contributions from multiple coders and allow for rollbacks if something goes awry.

Examples: Pulimi; Terraform.

2. Configuration management tools

Configuration management tools are, as the name suggests, specifically designed to manage server and software configurations.

These types of tools come in many shapes and sizes. Like the IaC approach, most demand some programming knowledge – and may implement their own scripting languages for process automation. However, they also include dashboards for easy management and visibility of deployments.

This panoramic approach makes it easy for admins to rapidly configure, troubleshoot and ensure a standardised environment across multiple server instances.

Examples: Chef; Puppet.

3. Container orchestration tools

Containers are integral to the modern cloud – but they can be slippery things. Managing hundreds of microservices across multiple instances can soon feel like juggling butter in a heatwave.

That's where container orchestration tools come in. They exist purely to make containerised software manageable, scalable and visible.

Container orchestration tools are powerful but require specialist knowledge to harness effectively. If your IT team isn't up to speed, it may be worth bringing in a cloud consultant to help get the ball rolling.

Examples: Kubernetes; Docker.

4. Workflow automation tools

Workflow automation tools are the Swiss Army Knives of the orchestration world. They don't specialise in server configuration or container management or any particular thing. They specialise in stuff – all sorts of stuff.

You might use a workflow automation tool, for instance, to move data into a database. Or manage server configurations. Or power a self-service frontend for key business processes. Or, well, whatever.

This flexibility comes at a cost. Using workflow automation tools is a bit like building a house using bricks and mortar instead of prefabricated parts. You can achieve the same result as you can with a specialised tool, but it might take you longer to get there.

To facilitate this, workflow automation tools typically integrate with dozens or hundreds of third-party applications and platforms. If you can put data in and get data out, there's a good chance you can orchestrate it.

Examples: Apache Airflow; Prefect.

5. Orchestration tools from cloud providers

You don't have to use any third-party tools if you don't want to. All major cloud platforms provide their own orchestration tools with varying levels of functionality and usability.

Google, for instance, offers three: Cloud Scheduler (for services), Workflows (for microservices) and Cloud Composer (for data-driven workflows).

AWS, meanwhile, has Step Functions. This is a visual workflow tool that helps you manage processes, microservices and data pipelines.

And Oracle provides the aptly named Oracle Orchestration. This robust scripting platform allows for bulk server configuration, automated application provisioning and rules-based error management, among other things.

Are you unsure which orchestration technology is right for you? Do you want to do more with your cloud provider's orchestration tools? Ascend Cloud's VMware experts help organisations make the most of their infrastructure with tailored cloud management solutions. Get the ball rolling by getting in touch with our team.

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