Microsoft has announced the release of a preview of Azure Automation. Azure Automation provides an orchestration engine for use within Microsoft Azure. Azure Automation allows you to automate the creation, monitoring, deployment and management of cloud resources in your Microsoft Azure subscription using a highly-available workflow execution engine and works in a similar way as Service Management Automation (SMA) provided by the Windows Azure Pack.
If you have a Microsoft Azure subscription you can activate the preview on the Preview Features page.
![clip_image001[5]](http://cloudcomputing.local/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/clip_image0015.png)
For more information on how to setup Azure automation, see "Step-by-Step: Getting Started with Microsoft Azure Automation preview feature" written by Keith Mayer from Microsoft.