Security automation architecture can improve organizations’ security posture by augmenting or replacing human intervention in the identification and containment of cyber exploits or breaches through the use of such technologies as artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics and orchestration. Sponsored by Juniper, the purpose of this research is to understand the challenges companies face when deciding how, when and where to implement the right automation capabilities in order to improve productivity, reduce costs, scale to support cloud deployments and ultimately strengthen the security posture of the business. Ponemon Institute surveyed 1,859 IT and IT security practitioners in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. All participants in this research are in organizations that presently deploy or plan to deploy security automation tools or applications and are familiar with their organizations use of security automation and have some responsibility for evaluating and/or selecting security automation technologies and vendors.