Workflow Orchestration
Workflow Orchestration is the process of coordinating and managing multiple automated tasks or processes to achieve a specific outcome.
Workflow orchestration can be defined as a method of integrating multiple automated tasks across various business applications and services.
In simple terms if you have a list of automated tasks that you need to run in a specific sequence and need a tool to manage that task, keep track of the state of the tasks, and give you visibility to the entire process, you need workflow orchestration.
Workflow Orchestration Tools
Whilst workflow orchestration can span across all aspects of IT, e.g software deployment, orchestrating tasks in AWS or for any complex process. I am going to focus this post on workflow orchestrator for network automation.
There are other amazing workflow orchestration tools out there such as:
Temporal – https://temporal.io
Prefect – https://www.prefect.io
Workflow Orchestrator
The tool I am going to use is https://workfloworchestrator.org
https://github.com/workfloworchestrator
The Workflow orchestrator project is a group of like minded network operators collaborating on opensource orchestration software.
Workflow Orchestration Examples
Automation Workflow
How does workflow orchestration differ from data orchestration?
Workflow orchestration is about coordinating the execution of tasks or jobs across systems. It’s primarily concerned with when and how things run, focusing on task dependencies, execution order, failure handling, and parallelism. This is common in DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and IT automation, where tools like Ansible AWX, Jenkins, or AWS Step Functions are used to automate operational tasks. For example, upgrading software on a fleet of devices in a specific sequence or triggering alerts based on job results is a typical workflow orchestration use case.
On the other hand, data orchestration focuses on managing where and how data flows. It deals with extracting data from various sources, transforming it to fit specific needs, and loading it into target systems — commonly known as ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes. Data orchestration ensures that datasets are timely, accurate, and in the right place for analytics or machine learning. Tools like Apache Airflow, dbt, Dagster, and Prefect specialize in this, enabling engineers to build robust, observable, and scalable data pipelines.
What is workflow orchestration?
Workflow orchestration is the automated coordination, sequencing, and management of tasks or processes across systems, tools, and teams. It ensures that tasks run in the right order, under the right conditions, and with the appropriate dependencies, inputs, and error handling.
In simple terms, it’s like setting up a roadmap that tells various systems what to do, when to do it, and what happens next, all without manual intervention.
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