Since the 1980s, when IBM began touting the concept of the lights out data center I have closely followed IT automation. It has been an interesting journey. The early years were focused on the mainframe and its various components. Certainly there were technical obstacles that needed to be overcome. For example, in those early years of automation there didnt seem to be a way around having at least one person available to actually flip a switch to power up the system(s). At that time it was much easier to imagine what might eventually be done than to actually implement such solutions. We have come a long way since then. What seemed like incredibly difficult technical challenges in automation have been overcome and are commonplace today. However, what has not changed are the people. Specifically, I am talking about IT staff. Those very IT professionals who are so enamoured with technology and appear to be masters of it also have a surprising resistance to change when it directly impacts their own jobs. They are quick to raise all manner of objections to automating some part of their own work. I suppose that this is an inherent part of human nature. However, automation is not about taking away jobs, but freeing people to concentrate on the more difficult, challenging, rewarding tasks instead of spending their time doing routine, mind-numbing work. While we are a long way from HAL of Space Odyssey 2001 fame, there is still much that can be done today in automating IT functions. I hope that the IT Automation track will stimulate some interesting dialog on this subject and generate more light than heat.