The renewable energy landscape is evolving fast—bringing smarter, more sustainable ways to generate, distribute, and use power. At the heart of this transformation is a lesser-known but vital standard: IEEE 2030.5—a foundational protocol that helps smart energy devices and the power grid communicate safely and reliably.
Dive into this blog for a breakdown of what IEEE 2030.5 is, why it’s important, and how automated certificate lifecycle management (CLM) helps meet its compliance requirements, driving forth secure and future-ready systems.
Why the IEEE 2030.5 Standard Was Developed
The rise of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)—like smart meters, rooftop solar panels, wind turbines, smart thermostats, battery storage, EVs, and inverters—has transformed the way our electric grid works. These resources help bring more renewable energy online, cut down on transmission losses, and make the grid more resilient by spreading out power generation. Today, millions of DERs feed into the power grid.
But as great as that sounds, it also brings new challenges like reverse power flows (back feeds), voltage swings, and reduced system inertia—which are tough to manage with traditional power grids that were originally built for big, centralized power plants.
To make things even trickier, many of these DERs are owned by either homeowners or businesses that both generate and consume energy. These setups often come with contractual agreements that set limits on how and when the devices can be used. In this context, grid operators require a solution that provides real-time monitoring and control over DERs while respecting these operational boundaries.
Utilities have traditionally used SCADA communication systems to manage a limited number of large-scale grid assets. However, SCADA isn’t built to handle thousands of small, scattered devices. Extending it to cover DERs is both expensive and impractical—especially since residential DER owners lack the specialized equipment SCADA requires. It is this gap that led to the development of IEEE 2030.5: a communication protocol that runs on the Internet, is accessible to all, and helps grid operators efficiently manage DERs and optimize energy distribution.
So, What Exactly Is the IEEE 2030.5 Standard?
IEEE 2030.5, also known as the Smart Energy Profile (SEP 2.0), is a modern communication protocol built to enable secure and efficient two-way communication between Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and the centralized smart grid. Think of it as the “language” that lets your rooftop solar panel or EV charger converse seamlessly and safely with the grid.
IEEE 2030.5 uses standard Internet protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP, and a RESTful architecture—much like modern web applications. This means new devices can plug in seamlessly and start communicating right away, regardless of the device manufacturer. The result is a highly scalable, cost-effective solution for managing the exploding number of DERs on today’s grid.
Security is at the core of IEEE 2030.5. The protocol uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to authenticate devices and encrypt all data exchanges. This ensures that only authorized devices can join the network and that communication is encrypted and remains protected from cyberattacks.
With IEEE 2030.5, grid operators gain real-time visibility into critical information about DERs, such as their location, status, capacity, and usage limits—and can control these resources remotely. This capability translates to smoother load management, faster demand response, and fewer on-site fixes.
In essence, IEEE 2030.5 turns the traditional, one-way power grid into a responsive, intelligent network—paving the way for a more reliable, secure, and green energy future.
The IEEE 2030.5 Standard Use Cases
Designed for versatility and effectiveness, IEEE 2030.5 covers a wide range of use cases:
Residential: Enables homeowners to seamlessly integrate home energy systems with the smart grid and gain greater visibility and control over their energy consumption.
Commercial and industrial Settings: Helps businesses manage hundreds or thousands of IoT devices across their facilities to optimize their energy usage and cut operational costs.
DER Developers: Provides an industry-wide playbook for designing and deploying DERs that work straight out of the box with any compliant grid—eliminating costly custom integrations.
The Critical Role of Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management in IEEE 2030.5
A fundamental aspect of the IEEE 2030.5 standard is ensuring secure and trustworthy communication between Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and the smart grid. This is achieved through PKI (public key infrastructure) and digital certificates, which help authenticate DERs connecting to the grid and encrypt their communications over TLS (Transport Layer Security). Managing these certificates effectively is critical for maintaining the integrity of the smart grid. However, manually managing certificates becomes nearly impossible as DER deployments scale into the millions.
Traditional methods—like spreadsheets or basic CA tools—are slow, fragmented, and error-prone. A single expired certificate or misconfigured setting can disrupt communication and cause costly grid outages. Moreover, manual processes do not provide complete visibility or control of certificates, making it hard to detect expired certificates or respond quickly to security threats—opening the grid to unauthorized access and data breaches through DERs.
When it comes to managing certificates at scale in an expansive grid environment, automation is indispensable. Automation streamlines the entire process—discovering, tracking, issuing, renewing, provisioning, and revoking certificates across thousands (or millions) of DERs. This efficiency is vital in the power grid, where even a slight delay in certificate renewal or issuance can lead to communication breakdowns. Automation enforces strict policies and role-based access controls (RBAC) for all certificate processes. This helps ensure every certificate remains valid and properly tied to its DER, dramatically reducing human error and keeping security tight.
Automation also brings the visibility grid operators need. With centralized dashboards, real-time alerts, and regular reporting, operators can continuously monitor certificate status and ensure that every DER is using up-to-date, authenticated certificates. This proactive approach is key to keeping the grid secure, compliant, and resilient—no matter how fast DERs scale.
How AppViewX Helps You Meet IEEE 2030.5 Compliance
AppViewX AVX ONE CLM is a ready-to-consume, scalable certificate lifecycle management (CLM) solution that fully automates all certificate processes from start to finish. From discovery and monitoring to renewal and provisioning, it provides complete visibility and control—all through a single, centralized dashboard.
Certificate Lifecycle Management with Visibility, Control and Insights – All in One Place
With powerful automation capabilities and policy enforcement, AVX ONE CLM helps minimize the risk of outages and security vulnerabilities—making it a key enabler for IEEE 2030.5 compliance.
Here’s how AppViewX supports IEEE 2030.5 compliance:
PKI Deployment and Redeployment: Seamlessly manage PKI and certificates issued to devices across their entire lifecycle—from first deployment to redeployment and ongoing use.
Automated Certificate Issuance: Issues certificates to devices at installation through the manufacturer’s PKI, ensuring each device is trusted and uniquely identifiable from day one.
Broad Support for Certificate Types: Handles all relevant certificate types—device, test device, optional TLS, client/server, and self-signed—to support a wide range of grid communication needs.
Full CA Hierarchy Support: Supports the entire chain of trust, including SERCA (Root CA), MCA (Manufacturer CA), and MICA (Manufacturer Intermediate CA).
OCSP Integration: Verifies the revocation status of certificates issued by non-IEEE 2030.5 CAs before expiration, ensuring continued trust and security.
Cryptographic Algorithm Support: Supports ECC key algorithms for efficient, strong encryption—ideal for resource-constrained IoT and Smart Grid devices—and SHA256 with ECDSA for message integrity and non-repudiation.
Support for Certificate Policies and Extensions: Enforces certificate policies, such as validity period, authority key identifier and subject key identifier, device type, and serial number to match IEEE 2030.5 requirements.
Robust Private Key Protection: Secures private keys with FIPS-compliant HSMs to maintain PKI integrity and device authenticity.
Industry Adoption and The Road Ahead
As the world accelerates toward clean and renewable energy, IEEE 2030.5 will play a central role in ensuring grid stability, security, and innovation. Thanks to its internet-based, plug-and-play architecture, the protocol has made significant strides in recent years, quietly becoming the global standard for DER integration.
California’s Rule 21—governing nearly half of the U.S. renewable energy market—now mandates IEEE 2030.5 for all DERs. The standard is gaining momentum internationally too, with Canada, Europe, and Australia adopting it for DER and EV charging management. Australia even launched its own localized version of the IEEE 2030.5 protocol, CSIP‑Aus, to support its fast-growing DER fleet and clean energy goals.
In December 2024, the IEEE 2030.5 working group released an updated version of the standard, with stronger security and broader capabilities. CSIP 3.0 is slated for 2025, promising further enhancements to meet emerging grid services and market demands. As the protocol continues to evolve, automated certificate lifecycle management (CLM) will become critical for maintaining compliance and securing this dynamic, distributed energy ecosystem.
Today’s financial systems are highly digital and deeply interconnected. That’s great until something breaks. Whether it’s ransomware paralyzing critical services or cryptographic vulnerabilities quietly eroding trust, disruptions are no longer rare—they’re systemic.
The Modern Heist Bank Report 2025shows just how serious it’s become: 64% of surveyed financial institutions reported cyber incidents in the past 12 months. Regulators aren’t standing by waiting for institutions to catch up. They’re demanding proof that firms have the countermeasures to withstand and recover fast from operational shocks.
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a European Union regulation designed to strengthen the digital operational resilience of financial institutions. The goal is to ensure they prepare for, respond to, and recover from ICT (Information and Communications Technology) risks—from cyberattacks to system outages and industry disruptions.
Effective across the EU since January 17, 2025, DORA applies to a wide range of financial entities, including banks, insurance companies, investment firms, payment service providers, crypto‑asset (currency) service providers, and even ICT third‑party suppliers that support them.
Why Focus on ICT Resilience ?
Modern financial operations run on ICT systems for everything from data processing and API integrations to cloud infrastructure and network security. But when these systems are mismanaged or targeted, they become serious points of failure. A single breach or outage can leak sensitive data, disrupt services, and destabilize the broader financial system. To prevent this, DORA enforces a comprehensive resilience framework to manage, mitigate, and report ICT-related incidents.
It focuses on five key areas:
ICT Risk Management: Implement structured policies, ongoing risk assessments, and governance mechanisms to proactively manage ICT risks.
Incident Reporting: Establish clear protocols for detecting, classifying, and reporting ICT-related incidents that could impact operational continuity or customer trust.
Third-Party Risk Management: Conduct due diligence, establish contractual safeguards, define clear exit strategies, and continuously monitor critical third-party ICT service providers.
Resilience Testing: Conduct regular risk-based penetration tests, such as Threat-Led Penetration Testing (TLPT), on critical ICT systems to simulate real-world attack scenarios and identify vulnerabilities. Implement incident response plans to mitigate attacks quickly.
Information Sharing: Share information and threat intelligence with other EU financial institutions to drive awareness and improve collective resilience.
Together, these five pillars form the backbone of DORA’s resilience strategy, ensuring resilience against cyber threats and operational disruptions.
Cryptography Requirements Under DORA
As financial institutions go increasingly digital, cryptography has become more than a security best practice. It is crucial to ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. Recognizing this, DORA—along with its supporting Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1774—lays out clear expectations for how financial institutions should govern cryptographic controls.
You Must Prioritize Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Shorter TLS Validity Readiness
Encryption and Cryptographic Controls (RTS Article 6)
Under DORA, financial institutions must develop, document, and implement a formal encryption policy covering all data and communications as part of their ICT risk management framework. Key requirements include:
Encrypting data at rest and in transit—as well as in use where feasible. If encrypting in use isn’t technically possible, organizations must process such data in isolated, protected environments.
Encrypting all internal network traffic and external communications
Defining clear criteria for choosing cryptographic algorithms and key lengths based on industry standards, risk analysis, and data classification
Updating or replacing cryptographic methods as threats evolve; When updates aren’t immediately possible, compensating controls must be documented and justified.
Cryptographic Key Management (RTS Article 7)
DORA expects financial institutions to maintain a documented key management policy that covers the entire lifecycle of cryptographic keys to prevent key exposure and misuse. Core expectations include:
Secure key handling across every stage—generation, storage, backup, transmission, rotation, and revocation
Strict access control and usage policies throughout the key lifecycle to prevent unauthorized access, theft, loss, or tampering
Clear procedures for key replacement following suspected compromise or damage
A comprehensive register of all digital certificates used in critical systems—along with processes to ensure timely renewals.
Protecting keys during their active use, often through encryption or isolation in secure hardware such as hardware security modules (HSMs)
Proper disposal of retired keys, including securely deleting keys and associated metadata to prevent recovery or misuse
Secure Authentication and Access Controls (Article 9)
Access to cryptographic assets must be carefully managed. Article 9 reinforces the need for strong identity verification and strict privilege controls. This includes:
Least-privilege access policies that restrict both physical and logical access to only those who need it, with documented and continuously monitored access rights
Strong authentication mechanisms to protect cryptographic keys from unauthorized use
Why Crypto-Agility Matters for DORA?
DORA’s technical standards—especially Article 6—send a strong message: cryptographic systems must evolve with the ever-changing threat landscape. In practice, this means building crypto-agility into your infrastructure. Financial institutions are expected to monitor cryptographic developments, assess emerging risks, and update algorithms or protocols—quickly, smoothly, and without disruption.
Why is this important? Because cryptographic standards don’t last forever. They age, weaken, and get replaced. Crypto-agility gives you the ability to:
Replace outdated algorithms and vulnerable keys without operational delays
Adapt to new regulatory mandates, such as DORA, with minimal friction
Stay ahead of new threats, such as the potential vulnerability of current encryption methods like RSA or ECC to quantum resilient algorithms, by transitioning to NIST-approved post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms before these methods are compromised.
Whether you are preparing for PQC, adapting to 47-day TLS certificate lifespans, or responding to Certificate Authority distrust incidents, crypto-agility ensures your cryptographic infrastructure remains resilient, secure, and compliant throughout.
How AppViewX Enables Crypto-Agility and Supports DORA Compliance
Crypto-agility isn’t a checkbox—it’s a continuous capability. AppViewX AVX ONE CLM, our certificate lifecycle management solution, helps you build and maintain it through powerful visibility, automation, and policy control—fully aligned with DORA’s technical requirements.
Complete Crypto Visibility
Under DORA Article 7, a complete, up-to-date certificate registry is non-negotiable. AVX ONE CLM delivers it by:
Automatically discovering certificates across your infrastructure—from any public or private CA, across all endpoints and cloud services—consolidating them into a centralized inventory
Mapping certificates to their location, owner, issuing CA, expiry date, and crypto standards for a single-pane-of-glass view
Providing dynamic visual dashboards to understand risks, manage renewals, prevent outages and vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance
End-to-End CLM Automation
DORA demands secure, consistent handling of digital certificates across their lifecycle—and AVX ONE CLM delivers precisely that.
Full lifecycle automation, including issuance, renewal, provisioning, revocation, and last-mile binding to endpoints
A low-code workflow builder and a rich library of automation templates to tailor automation to your environment
CA-agnostic operations—manage all public and private certificates from one place and implement cryptographic changes quickly, without disruption
Built-In Policy Control and Governance:
Strong cryptographic governance is central to DORA compliance. AVX ONE CLM enables:
Automatic enforcement of defined policies for approved CAs, algorithms, validity periods, upgrades, and more.
Role-based access controls (RBAC) to ensure secure and authorized certificate issuance
Detailed audit logs, automated policy checks, and periodic reports to simplify audits, ensure compliance, and strengthen overall crypto hygiene
DORA Compliance Starts with Crypto-Agility
DORA marks a major step forward in strengthening the financial sector’s defense against growing digital threats. With its strong focus on operational resilience and crypto-agility, DORA pushes financial institutions to move beyond static defenses to dynamic systems that can adapt, recover, and stay secure as risks evolve.
Crypto-agility is central to making that shift.
With AppViewX AVX ONE CLM, crypto-agility isn’t an afterthought—it’s built in. From complete certificate visibility and lifecycle automation to centralized policy control and reporting, AppViewX helps your organization meet DORA requirements with confidence.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard “AI” at SAP Sapphire 2025 …
AI was simply everywhere at this year’s events. From Christian Klein’s keynote to the show floor demos, it was the foundation of nearly every conversation. But beneath the buzzwords and bold visions, I noticed one question kept surfacing: How do you actually do it? How do you make AI actionable inside the day-to-day workings of an enterprise?
That’s the question we were thinking about at the Redwood Software booth and in our customer sessions and roundtables. It was fantastic to see the energy this year: standing-room-only demos, deep discussions with IT and business leaders and a steady stream of customers stopping by to share what they’re already doing with job scheduling, orchestration and workload automation (WLA). The excitement was real, but the deeper story was about who’s already rolling up their sleeves instead of just dreaming about digital transformation that actually realizes the value of AI.
Redwood was proud to be recognized for the second year in a row with the SAP Pinnacle Award in a category honoring innovative partners that provide economically relevant solutions, validating our ability to consistently drive high adoption and ROI for SAP customers. We also announced that RunMyJobs by Redwood is now an SAP Endorsed App, Premium certified — the highest level of SAP verification, indicating outstanding customer value.
The best part? We’re not talking in hypotheticals. These milestones are a testament to the real-world outcomes our customers achieve when integrating with the latest SAP technologies, maximizing the value of their SAP investment. We saw that in full color in sessions and roundtable discussions with RS Group and others, whose teams shared striking results they’ve achieved using RunMyJobs. They haven’t been waiting for the AI wave. Instead, they’ve been preparing for it by modernizing their WLA. And it’s paying off.
We’re making business AI real as we drive digital transformations that help customers thrive in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Klein’s sentiment rang true throughout the event, especially his keynote theme: To thrive in an AI-powered world, it’s not enough to modernize ERP. Foundational processes, especially the ones running behind the scenes, must be intelligent, agile and orchestrated. WLA platforms like RunMyJobs are already doing the work of preparing SAP landscapes for AI by coordinating processes end to end, orchestrating the tasks that drive efficient data pipelines and ensuring the reliability that AI output depends on.
Redwood customers leading the charge
SAP made it clear: the future isn’t about cobbling together best-of-breed tools. It’s about building a smart, cohesive suite. That suite extends beyond core ERP to include the applications and automation fabrics that make an entire business run. Redwood customers are already there.
RunMyJobs isn’t a standalone job scheduler. It’s the connective tissue for automation fabrics across SAP and non-SAP systems, delivering the kind of real-time orchestration that complex, data-intensive environments demand. Redwood’s shared product vision with SAP is helping customers optimize operations to scale with AI. That alignment is also what earned RunMyJobs its SAP Endorsed App status.
We spotlighted compelling Redwood customer stories at SAP Sapphire this year, including the following.
RS Group: Transforming global supply chain operations for a demanding market
As a global industrial distributor, RS Group faces an unforgiving supply chain environment. Before RunMyJobs, they couldn’t even run business operations processing (BOP) daily for all 26 markets they serve. The complexity was enormous. They had to stagger market runs, which put customer promises, such as delivery timelines, at risk.
Using RunMyJobs to re-engineer processes and workstreams and optimize job logic, they now run BOP for all 26 markets daily.
We now meet our promise to our business and customers.
Dharmesh Patel, Head of SAP Development & Services, RS Group
But that was only the beginning. Previously, RS Group faced issues with poor monitoring, alerting and visibility, leading to frequent Priority 1 (P1) and Priority 2 (P2) incidents in critical operations like order processing and warehouse management. With RunMyJobs, they introduced custom alerting, rebuilt job frameworks and created a governance model for continuous improvement.
The payoff of using RunMyJobs for RS Group: No P1 or P2 incidents in critical operations in over a year and job execution reliability over 99%
This isn’t just operational success. It’s setting the stage for AI readiness, because AI needs more than just access to data. It needsreliable, actionable data at the right time, integrated into the processes that power the business. RS Group is ready. When you run a global supply chain, “ready” isn’t a luxury.
Ready on day 1: How fit-to-suite automation prepares you for the AI future
The real takeaway from SAP Sapphire wasn’t that AI is coming. It’s that AI is already here, and the companies reaping the benefits are the ones that did the foundational work early. Redwood customers like RS Group have already modernized their WLA. They’re not bolting on AI. They’re ready for what’s happening now and what’s to come because their automation is fit-to-suite: deeply integrated, spanning SAP and non-SAP systems and built for scale and AI innovation.
RunMyJobs provides the automation fabrics enterprises need to orchestrate complex, cross-system workflows and support the data pipelines AI depends on. It connects SAP S/4HANA to the hybrid architectures, business process layers and related data AI needs to drive better, faster decisions and more efficient attainment of business outcomes.
When your business runs on well-managed, intelligent processes, you don’t just hope your AI strategy will work — you know it can.
An obvious and undeniable message of SAP Sapphire 2025? WLA modernization isn’t a side project. It’s a prerequisite. See how Redwood supports SAP customers in future-proofing their ecosystems.
A large United States-based manufacturer recently approached Redwood Software with a high-stakes decision to make: Renew their legacy workload automation (WLA) contract at five times the cost or modernize and move to the cloud. Their IT leadership had already committed to a cloud-first strategy aligned with their broader digital transformation goals. Renewing with their vendor would have meant staying tethered to costly on-premises infrastructure and putting off much-needed modernization.
The business case was clear for moving to a cloud-native WLA solution. But the clock was ticking. With just three months before their existing contract expired, the company needed to evaluate new platforms, prepare for migration and go live in that tight timeframe without disrupting critical business operations.
That’s when they turned to Redwood.
Our team of migration experts quickly mobilized, leaning on Redwood’s proven methodology, cloud-native platform and proprietary migration tools. We helped this company not only meet their deadline, migrating from a legacy platform in just 14 weeks, but also use the migration as a strategic opportunity to improve automation processes, retire technical debt and set the stage for long-term success in the cloud.
This isn’t an edge case. Whether you’re facing similar licensing deadlines, preparing for a RISE with SAP transformation or simply looking to modernize a fragmented automation landscape, you’re not alone — and you don’t have to start from scratch.
At Redwood, we understand that migration isn’t just a technical change. It’s your chance to rethink how automation supports your business and make sure you’re ready for what the future brings.
Speed is essential — but so is strategy
Time constraints are common in these scenarios. Redwood frequently works with organizations facing license renewals that force a go/no-go decision, RISE with SAP transitions that require cloud-readiness and/or internal mandates for tool consolidation and legacy system modernization.
These deadlines create urgency, but a rushed migration without strategy leads to risk. It can carry over inefficiencies and complications into your next-generation platform. Too often, we see companies fall into the trap of replatforming without rethinking.
In our experience, there are two primary mindsets when it comes to WLA migration:
Lift-and-shift first, optimize later: Move jobs as-is to meet tight deadlines, with plans to modernize after go-live.
Modernize as you move: Take the opportunity to streamline architecture, remove redundancies and improve process logic as you migrate.
Most organizations fall somewhere in between, and that’s exactly why Redwood approaches migration by tailoring it to your environment, not a one-size-fits-all script.
Migration as momentum: Essential considerations
What kind of change are you driving? Are you simply replicating jobs or using this transition to streamline, modernize and reduce complexity?
How will you optimize the new platform? Are you planning for better performance and improved reliability from the start?
Is your automation strategy aligned with broader goals? Will the migration support larger initiatives like cloud adoption, tool consolidation or SAP transformation?
Who needs to be involved: Are departments, service providers or external teams part of the process, and are they looped in early?
Redwood evaluates your:
Source platform and job volume
Critical business processes and dependencies
Timeline flexibility and go-live constraints
Appetite for technical debt cleanup
This ensures we don’t just recreate your existing environment but deliver a better one.
Rather than thinking of migration as a one-time event, consider it the start of a smarter operating model. Redwood’s Professional Services team brings decades of experience helping enterprises like yours transition from legacy WLA platforms to our modern, cloud-native solution, RunMyJobs by Redwood. Here’s what that means for your business.
IT infrastructure savings
Migrating off legacy systems sooner lets you decommission outdated infrastructure, eliminate those redundant support contracts and reduce operational overhead. This is especially important if you’re heading toward hybrid or full cloud adoption.
Business process improvements
We don’t just move your jobs; we evaluate them. During migration, we help you identify inefficiencies, unnecessary handoffs and outdated dependencies. This is your chance to streamline.
Operational efficiencies
Redwood provides pre-built templates, connectors and industry best practices to fast-track implementation. These accelerators and our unique testing frameworks help you get to production faster.
The groundwork for long-term gains
One of the most overlooked benefits of a well-executed migration is how quickly you can begin realizing value, and not just from the software itself. Value comes from removing friction. Thus, you need a team with a track record of doing just that.
With Redwood, you begin seeing results almost immediately:
Noticeably stronger stability: Our migration process is designed to minimize disruption and deliver a stable production environment from day one. You don’t need weeks or months of post-migration troubleshooting to feel the benefits.
Improved visibility: Instead of toggling between tools and spreadsheets, you have a single source of truth for managing jobs enterprise-wide. Thus, fewer blind spots and better operational alignment.
Reduced manual effort: With intelligent automation and reusable templates, your teams spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on process improvement.
Accelerated business outcomes: Faster financial closes, improved service availability … whatever you’re after, Redwood removes the bottlenecks and gets you there quickly.
Greater agility: Once you’re on a modern, cloud-native platform, you can scale, adapt and evolve your automation environment in lockstep with your business. Adding new systems or integrating third-party tools becomes significantly easier.
Modernize on your terms
Migrating to a new WLA solution involves much more than moving scripts or job chains. Your goal should be to enable a new level of orchestration across your enterprise. That’s why it pays to work with a partner who specializes in this exact domain.
Redwood’s Professional Services team is focused solely on successful automation implementations. We offer:
Proven methodologies for assessment, migration and rollout
Proprietary tools to streamline job mapping, testing and cutover
Flexibility to adjust your scope in real time
Risk mitigation with detailed validation and go-live readiness
Post-migration services to keep advancing your automation maturity
At Redwood, we don’t just bring technology. We also offer unmatched focus, tools and experience. Organizations across industries have trusted Redwood to help them leave behind legacy WLA platforms.
If you’re feeling the pressure of an expiring contract, a cloud deadline or a business that’s outgrown your current WLA solution, Redwood’s proven migration approach is here to move you forward with a clear vision.
Hear directly from Daniel Sivar, Technologist at American Water, about how Redwood guided the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States through “managed waves” to ensure a successful migration.
Imagine a brand-new, high-efficiency car. It’s got all the latest tech, promising to get you from point A to point B faster and more smoothly than ever.
Now, imagine you’re only using the basic functions — driving, accelerating, braking. You’re getting where you need to go, but you’re not using cruise control, lane assist or advanced navigation. That’s what it’s like when a team adopts a powerful automation platform without fully investing in training.
The car (the software) is fantastic, and it’s working, but there’s so much more it can do. A team of admins may have created basic automated tasks, transferred essential files and set up fundamental reports. But are they leveraging all the features that will help them achieve their goals? How much valuable time was spent setting up those rudimentary processes, and how often did they need to reach out to support or success teams to gain even minimal traction?
This is where a “learning champion” can shift things into high gear.
Learning champion: An individual who proactively seeks and shares software knowledge and best practices with their team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement and driving increased productivity and efficiency
We’ll explore how becoming a learning champion boosts your individual productivity and career and amplifies that effect across your team and organization, especially if you’re in the process of adopting automation.
Taking control: Why become a learning champion?
According to the Customer Education Trends in 2025 report from Skilljar, the modern learner has been thrown into an “everything, everywhere, all at once” environment, consuming self-paced content, articles, documentation and live support on their own terms and at their own pace.
While the flexibility to find information in the format that makes sense to you and without waiting to be assigned a course can feel empowering, it also adds complexity. When you consider the number of people who must learn a given skillset or platform, you can understand the nth-degree potential for confusion or frustration — an undesirable and non-scalable state.
Individual ownership matters, especially when you’re adopting complex or evolving tools like automation platforms. A learning champion becomes a catalyst for team efficiency and organizational progress.
Elevate personal productivity
Proactive learners make fewer basic errors, reduce support tickets and implement automation faster. Plus, upskilling a team contributes to business agility. As BytePlus notes, “Employees with diverse, updated skills can adapt more quickly to technological and market changes.”
Quick tip: Gauge your starting point. How long does it take you to complete a process? How often are you asking for help? Once you complete training, measure again. You’ll see tangible signs of your growth, and so will others. Share these insights with your team and manager to make the case for upskilling.
Advance your career with certification
Becoming a learning champion isn’t just about helping your team; it’s a smart career move. Achieving certification, especially in complex automation software, validates your expertise and positions you as a subject matter expert. It signals to your organization (and future employers) that you’re not just using the tool but owning it.
Certifications in automation software demonstrate that you can do more than execute tasks: You can understand workflows, configure processes and lead others. For example, the Automation Developer Specialist Certification from Redwood University challenges your understanding of advanced functions, complex workflow automation and process scheduling best practices. Users with this certification leverage their deep knowledge of the software to drive transformation instead of just reacting to the tool.
The initiative can start during your onboarding: Learning champions don’t wait for permission to explore new things, and proactiveness is a quality your current leaders and future employers seek.
Quick tip: Ask about learning paths that align with your team and career goals, then dive in and get started. Share feedback with your immediate team on how the material helped you. Post your new credential on LinkedIn for wider reach.
Share what you learn
Knowledge is best when shared widely and in ways that are digestible. As Skilljar puts it, “Educators are curating, not just creating.” Software vendors can offer a full library of content (like what you’ll find in Redwood University), but it’s up to learners to enroll, complete lessons and share their knowledge.
Whether you’re forwarding helpful documentation, recommending training courses or showing a colleague how to fix a recurring issue, you become the go-to person. Don’t stop there. Your goal should be to elevate yourself AND others. A lone learning champion is a great start, but real efficiency comes when your whole team levels up.
Quick tip: Create a “Top 3 takeaways” list after every course you complete and email them to your team. Keep it light, useful and actionable.
The impact of software education on team productivity
A well-trained team is a fast team. When many users understand how to leverage automation software fully, you get better data, fewer bottlenecks and less reliance on external support.
In other words, you’re making the most of your investment.
According to TSIA, product adoption is a key business metric. Leaders expect returns on software purchases, and ongoing, quality training is how you get there.
The real power of education becomes clear when users go beyond the fundamentals of process automation. Too often, users are taught just enough to complete their tasks. But it’s essential to go deeper: to grasp why a process works the way it does, where automation eliminates inefficiencies and how to extend those benefits across other business processes.
This level of knowledge comes from hands-on experience — working through real use cases, experimenting in a safe environment and applying lessons immediately to daily work. If you discover a faster way to automate a handoff between departments, for example, you’re building consistency and making sure everyone is working from the same playbook.
Build a culture of curiosity
When one person steps up, others follow. A team that values education creates a ripple effect. Questions become learning moments, and continuous improvement becomes the norm.
That kind of culture pays off.
BytePlus emphasizes an SHRM stat: Replacing a single employee can cost up to 200% of their salary. Investing in learning reduces turnover and keeps your best people engaged and growing.
Bonus: Training builds loyalty. A team that learns together stays together.
User to influencer: How to lead the learning revolution
Whether you’re in leadership and setting up a flexible, comprehensive learning environment for your team or an individual looking to influence your peers, use the following steps to influence other automation software users.
Blaze the trail: Ask your vendor what training they offer and which courses fit your role. Choose the format that works best for you — live, self-paced, etc.
Elevate your team: Recommend key features or tricks your team can use today and encourage them to explore help centers, learning academies and documentation.
Look outward: In many enterprises, different teams use different tools for similar goals. Your experiences can help standardize education, in turn consolidating spend and scaling success.
Share your team’s gains: Are you submitting fewer support tickets? Are processes faster? Are you automating more? Compare your pre-training and post-training metrics.
Be the spark
Investing time in learning pays off at every level, from your own growth to company-wide productivity.
You gain:
The confidence to navigate the software
Mastery of tools that drive automation
Speed and accuracy in your day-to-day work
Recognition as a subject matter expert
Momentum to shape your career path
Your organization gains:
Stronger product adoption rates
Greater ROI
A lesser need for IT intervention and manual workarounds
Faster onboarding for new team members
Reduced turnover due to better engagement and support for each role
Become a learning champion for your team’s Redwood Software products by utilizing Redwood University. It’s free and open to all customers and partners. Sign up today.
A cross-functional team of researchers has spent months developing a next-generation machine learning (ML) model designed to predict how a new compound behaves across multiple biological targets. It’s the kind of computational power that can accelerate drug discovery by weeks or months and bring life-saving therapies to market faster.
Despite an optimized IT infrastructure and cloud environment, the simulation doesn’t start because the latest compound batch data hasn’t been validated in SAP. The experiment metadata is still siloed in spreadsheets, and the model can’t ingest incomplete or inconsistent values. In other words, the fluid connection required between systems isn’t there.
As you may well know if you work in this industry, this isn’t a hypothetical delay. Data readiness can’t be treated as a side task, although it too often is. In which case, it doesn’t matter how advanced an AI model you have. With regulatory pressures high, the cost of a subtle misalignment is steep.
Because this applies whether you’re simulating compounds, ensuring patient records are anonymized and audit-ready or forecasting inventory, critical processes break down when data stays disconnected. Leading healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations are attempting to solve this common problem by rethinking how data moves from SAP to ML platforms to analytics and back.
Life science’s parallel pipelines: Innovation and execution
In life sciences organizations like yours, innovation happens on two fronts. On one side, your R&D teams use AI and massive datasets to accelerate discovery. ML models in AWS SageMaker or Schrödinger Suite predict promising compound structures, while simulation platforms test toxicity and efficacy before running a single experiment.
On the other side, your clinical and supply chain teams ensure those discoveries reach patients safely and cost-effectively while following all compliance regulations. They manage everything from patient enrollment to cold chain logistics to regulatory filing, with each process powered by SAP supply chain and life sciences solutions and custom platforms.
These processes live in very different domains, but they share a common dependency: structured, timely, accurate data. And in too many organizations, that data still moves manually or asynchronously between systems.
Where the cracks appear
When SAP data isn’t orchestrated, critical handoffs break down and molecular data must be manually pulled from SAP R&D Management to feed AI pipelines. Trial operations build forecasts on outdated enrollment data. Lab results live in one system and regulatory documentation in another, with no feedback loop. Business users wait on IT to reconcile siloed datasets and generate reports.
Drug discovery is increasingly computational, but that doesn’t mean the work is fully automated. Whether you’re managing experiments or kits, the pain is the same: unreliable flow, lost time and elevated risk. Without intelligent orchestration, pipelines either fall apart or deliver fragmented, stale information. This directly undermines the performance of AI models and introduces bias or neglects to provide key correlations. Essentially, you end up making decisions with outdated datasets — or worse, hallucinations. Predictive models built to accelerate discovery or optimize trial logistics can quickly fall out of compliance with data lineage and validation requirements.
Meanwhile, if you cling to these fragmented or manually stitched data pipelines, you face another growing disadvantage: You can’t match the speed of your competitors. Those who are investing in intelligent, adaptive data orchestration are moving faster while proving the trustworthiness of their AI-driven insights.
High-fidelity orchestration is the foundation of competitive agility and relevance in your industry.
Research, meet orchestration
Orchestration is what makes AI scale in R&D. Your SAP environment becomes the launchpad for faster, smarter research, enabling you to:
Continuously extract experimental and batch data from SAP R&D Management and SAP Analytics Cloud
Send compound specs to AWS SageMaker or Schrödinger Suite for modeling
Coordinate modeling jobs and return results to Databricks for consolidation
Push insight summaries about ranked candiddates back into SAP
Trigger alerts for research leads of successful outcomes or red flags and send validated results to SAP Datasphere
Clinical delivery, intelligently aligned
On the delivery side, timing is everything. Clinical trial operations depend on up-to-date patient enrollment data, trial protocols and inventory levels across distributed trial sites. If systems aren’t aligned, sites risk running out of supplies or holding expired stock.
With proper orchestration:
Enrollment data from SAP Intelligent Clinical Supply Management flows into forecasting tools
ML models in Azure ML or Databricks predict site-specific demand
Stock levels in SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) or S/4HANA Materials Management (MM) are cross-checked automatically
If risk is flagged, replenishment is triggered and stakeholders are notified
Trial performance metrics update automatically in SAP Analytics Cloud
All data is centralized in SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) for regulatory compliance and real-time insight
Data-driven defense against disruption
When the unexpected hits, data orchestration is the difference between rerouting and reacting.
Take supply chain disruptions, which are a matter of when, not if, in pharma. A shortage of active ingredients, a vendor backlog, a shipping delay — any of these can jeopardize production schedules or trial timelines.
The real risk isn’t the event itself but what happens when your systems can’t respond in time. With orchestrated data pipelines between SAP S/4HANA, SAP IBP and platforms like Databricks or Azure Synapse, you can spot shortages early, simulate impacts and initiate contingency plans.
A research-to-treatment automation fabric
True transformation comes when discovery and delivery are both orchestrated from end to end. Here’s what a real automation fabric looks like.
Forecasting clinical and manufacturing needs
Export enrollment or order data from SAP S/4HANA
Clean and enrich using SAP Datasphere
Run predictive models via Databricks, Azure ML or SageMaker
Feed outputs into SAP IBP for dynamic planning
Managing research and validation
Extract compound data from SAP R&D Management
Coordinate modeling jobs in Schrödinger Suite
Score and validate candidates in Databricks
Trigger SAP updates and notify research teams automatically
Controlling inventory and site logistics
Pull inventory positions from S/4HANA
Reconcile with forecasted site needs from SAP IBP and ML pipelines
Generate and dispatch replenishment orders
Publish everything in SAP Analytics Cloud for transparency
Keeping teams informed and aligned
Push alerts to supply, clinical or research leads based on process outcomes
Route structured datasets to reporting dashboards and compliance archives
Automate audit trails, approvals and next-step triggers
With every step validated, timestamped and secure thanks to RunMyJobs by Redwood, your data flows continuously, allowing you to be proactive instead of reactive.
Audit-ready AI depends on orchestrated data
The rise of AI in life sciences is helping to optimize molecule screening and clinical trial site selection and even personalize patient communications. With that power comes increasing scrutiny.
Regulators are watching closely. Health authorities in the United States, European Union and beyond are issuing new guidelines around AI in clinical decision-making, digital therapeutics and research applications. They want to know: Where did the data come from? Was it anonymized? Who validated it? And can you prove it?
If your data pipelines are fragmented, those answers may simply not exist. But orchestration changes that. When you automate your data moving from SAP modules to Azure ML or from SAP Datasphere to regulatory systems, you also create a system of record. Every dataset has a timestamp, and every transformation is traceable. This strategically enables AI innovation.
The next wave of advancement will hinge on more than modeling accuracy; you’ll need to be able to explain how your model was built or prove the integrity of the data behind it. With the right orchestration solution, you don’t have to choose between speed and control. You can stay audit-ready and future-ready.
Develop a resilient nervous system
Think of your systems like organs. Each one serves a distinct purpose, but they communicate via signals that travel through connective tissue. These signals are orchestration in action!
Want to know more about orchestrating SAP data with RunMyJobs? Read more about using the SAP Analytics Cloud connector.
