1. What is Automation?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/overview

Automation is needed in three broad areas of cloud operations:

• Deploy and manage - Deliver repeatable and consistent infrastructure as code.
• Response - Create event-based automation to diagnose and resolve issues.
• Orchestrate - Orchestrate and integrate your automation with other Azure or third party services and products.

Oldvetmsg asked a similar question and I love the answers on Reddit.

It's basically a centralised scheduled task server in the cloud.
i It's great for scheduling and storing secrets.

1.1 What is Automation Account?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-create-standalone-account?tabs=azureportal

With an Automation account, you can authenticate runbooks by managing resources in either Azure Resource Manager or the classic deployment model. One Automation Account can manage resources across all regions and subscriptions for a given tenant.

1.2 Shared Resources

Mermaid Diagram 1: Automation Schedules and Modules Overview

graph TD
    A[Automation Account] --> B[Schedules]
    A --> C[Modules]
    C --> D[Modules Gallery]
    C --> E[Python 2 and 3 Packages]

Steps:

1. Schedules: Trigger automation at predefined times.
2. Modules: Manage Azure and other systems.
3. Modules Gallery: Allows easy importing of runbooks.
4. Python Packages: Support for Python 2 and 3 runbooks.

Mermaid Diagram 2: Credentials, Connections, and Certificates Management

graph TD
    A[Automation Account] --> B[Credentials]
    A --> C[Connections]
    A --> D[Certificates]

Steps:

1. Credentials: Securely store sensitive information for use by runbooks.
2. Connections: Store common name-value pairs for system connections.
3. Certificates: Used in authentication and securing resources.

Mermaid Diagram 3: Managing Variables in Automation

graph TD
    A[Automation Account] --> B[Variables]
    B --> C[Used Across Runbooks and Configurations]
    B --> D[Modify Without Changing Runbooks]

Steps:

1. Variables: Hold reusable content.
2. Modify Without Changing: Variables can be updated without modifying runbooks or configurations referencing them.

2. AZ CLI Commands

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/automation?view=azure-cli-latest

az automation account list

3. Azure Powershell