When we hear about automation, it’s typically in reference to making entire processes or workflows run. This isn’t quite right.

The definition of automation is setting up a single task to run on its own – automating one thing. This single task can be anything from launching a web server, stopping a service, or integrating a web app.

More often, orchestration is the term we mean when we refer to automating a lot of things at once. After all, automating a process requires countless steps, often spanning app, mobile, and database – so orchestration is the perfect term for this larger, more complex technique.