Automation is a crucial part of DevOps, encompassing people, processes, and technology. It involves using tools and technologies to reduce or eliminate manual processes in software development, deployment, and operations. Automation enables faster release cycles, improved software quality, and seamless collaboration between development and operations teams. Common tasks that can be automated include building artifacts, testing, cloud infrastructure provisioning, environment configuration, monitoring and alerts, deployment, backup and recovery, and more. DevOps automation starts with small steps such as shell scripts, programming language scripting, and then moves to infrastructure as code (IaC), configuration management tools, CI/CD pipelines, and platforms like GitHub, Spacelift, Jira, and cloud providers' automation capabilities. Best practices for DevOps automation include starting small, using IaC for provisioning, shifting security left, standardizing on automation tools, using deployment strategies, and using the best tool available. Automation provides benefits such as consistency and reliability, speed and efficiency, transparency, and scalability, making it an essential part of a successful DevOps implementation.