Service orchestration and automation in 2025: Why SOAPs matter now
Workload automation (WLA) has always been part of IT’s backbone. Decades ago, it meant running batch jobs overnight on mainframes. Today, it’s managing dependencies, orchestrating processes and making sure workloads finish on time across cloud-based and on-premises systems. The demands are bigger, the environments are hybrid and the stakes are higher.
Service Orchestration and Automation Platforms (SOAPs) are the next step. They’re more than an upgrade to job scheduling software — they give IT leaders an orchestration solution that unifies workflows, eliminates manual intervention and scales across ecosystems.
Gartner® and the rise of SOAPs
SOAPs unify workflow orchestration, workload automation and resource provisioning, extending across data pipelines and cloud-native architectures.
– 2025 Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report
Gartner recognized the shift early. In the 2020 Market Guide for SOAP, analysts highlighted how traditional workload automation was already evolving, expanding into event-driven automation, cloud infrastructure and big data workloads.
By 2024, the momentum was undeniable. Gartner released its first Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP, introducing SOAP as a standalone category and redefining how automation platforms are evaluated. The report called out the need for solutions that offer extensibility, observability and cross-platform orchestration as hybrid IT environments became the norm.
And adoption continues to rise. According to the 2025 report, by 2029, 90% of organizations currently delivering workload automation will transition to SOAPs to orchestrate workloads and data pipelines across hybrid environments.
Redwood Software is a SOAP Leader
In the 2025 Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report, Gartner named Redwood a Leader for the second year in a row, positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision and highest for Ability to Execute.
How SOAPs expand workload automation
Traditional workload automation tools were designed to automate repetitive tasks inside individual systems. That worked when environments were simpler — but it doesn’t scale to today’s multi-cloud, containerized or event-driven IT ecosystems.
SOAPs address that gap. They:
- Connect APIs and enterprise applications into unified workflows
- Provision cloud resources automatically to optimize usage
- Support CI/CD pipelines with orchestration tools tailored to DevOps
- Streamline end-to-end business processes without relying on scripts
With pre-built connectors and low-code configuration, SOAPs also simplify integration across complex environments.
The benefits go beyond IT. SOAPs improve SLA performance, reduce operational risk and give teams the flexibility to respond faster to business needs, all while maintaining control.
Why SOAPs matter now
In 2025, automation is more about staying competitive than just saving time. Organizations face growing pressure to deliver services faster, operate across hybrid environments and make real-time decisions based on reliable data.
Legacy tools were never built for this pace or complexity. SOAPs fill the gap by offering a platform that coordinates automated tasks, manages cloud infrastructure and connects business processes across fragmented systems. These platforms help standardize service management while optimizing the flow of work between infrastructure, applications and teams. That’s why SOAPs are increasingly seen as strategic automation solutions rather than merely IT tools.
SOAPs support event-driven automation, give teams visibility into dependencies and reduce human error while enabling IT to scale automation efforts without rewriting existing processes. Thus, they support growth, cost savings and performance across the enterprise.
As digital transformation accelerates, SOAPs are quickly becoming the backbone of automation strategies across industries. They’re the connective layer that links IT service delivery, business agility and operational resilience.
What SOAPs enable across five enterprise Use Cases
In the 2025 Gartner Critical Capabilities for SOAP report, an essential companion to the Magic Quadrant™ for SOAP report, Gartner evaluated vendors across five real-world Use Cases. These represent the core ways organizations apply SOAPs to meet both IT and business needs.
1. IT workload automation
This use case centers on planning, scheduling and executing large volumes of automated jobs across enterprise systems. SOAPs support consistent workload execution across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments while helping reduce manual intervention and maintain SLA compliance. Key capabilities include centralized job scheduling, advanced dependency handling, historical tracking and workload visibility at scale.
2. IT workflow orchestration
Workflow orchestration involves building and managing end-to-end processes that span systems, applications and environments. SOAP platforms provide visual tools, event-based triggers and integration libraries that allow IT teams to design, monitor and adjust workflows without relying on custom scripts or fragmented tooling.
3. Data orchestration
As data flows increase in volume and complexity, SOAPs enable the orchestration of ETL jobs, big data processes and real-time pipelines. They provide dependency management, monitoring and scheduling for data-centric workloads across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures, helping ensure data arrives where and when it’s needed for analytics, reporting and AI initiatives.
4. Citizen automation
SOAPs also extend self-service automation capabilities to business users through portals and low-code tools. With proper governance and role-based access control, organizations can empower non-technical users to initiate approved workflows, reducing IT ticket volume and accelerating business responsiveness without compromising compliance.
5. DevOps automation
In modern DevOps environments, SOAPs play a key role in orchestrating build, test and deployment pipelines. They integrate with CI/CD toolchains, support infrastructure-as-code models and help automate platform engineering tasks. This enables faster delivery cycles, more resilient deployments and streamlined collaboration between development and operations.
Achieve unified orchestration for your hybrid IT and business operations
These five Use Cases reflect how automation strategies have evolved. SOAPs are no longer just workload automation tools; they’re orchestration platforms that unify business processes, data pipelines, digital infrastructure and development workflows.
As Gartner notes, service orchestration is now central to how enterprises improve operational efficiency, increase agility and support digital transformation initiatives across hybrid IT environments.
To see how your organization can benefit from a modern orchestration platform in Redwood’s suite of leading automation fabric solutions, request a demo of Tidal by Redwood.