This blog post is part of PagerDuty’s ongoing series on how we’re helping customers navigate their journey towards autonomous operations. Read on to learn about how PagerDuty’s Rundeck/RBA 6.0 recently announced in GA builds towards this vision.

The cost of running automation on aging infrastructure

For teams running automation in production, the platform underneath matters as much as the workflows on top. Outdated runtimes accumulate CVEs faster than they can be patched. Legacy metrics endpoints drift further from the observability stacks teams actually use. Database compatibility lags behind security requirements. Each gap is manageable in isolation. But, together, they become a drag on every team that depends on that automation to keep systems running.

The answer isn’t to replace automation workflows that work. It’s to modernize the foundation they run on. That means aligning the runtime, monitoring, and security posture of the platform with where the rest of the stack already is — so teams can keep building on what they’ve invested in, without accumulating risk underneath it.

What is Runbook Automation?

PagerDuty Runbook Automation (RBA), powered by Rundeck, is the automation layer that sits at the heart of incident response. It connects your existing playbooks, scripts, and APIs into standardized workflows — giving teams a way to diagnose and remediate issues faster, with the right guardrails in place. Whether triggered automatically by an incident, invoked self-service by a responder, or scheduled as a recurring operational task, RBA removes the manual toil that slows teams down and keeps critical systems running.

With a distributed Runner architecture, RBA executes automation securely across cloud, data center, and on-prem environments. No direct network access to sensitive infrastructure required. Teams get full visibility into what ran, when, and who approved it. 

Rundeck/Runbook Automation version 6.0 is generally available

Rundeck/RBA 6.0 is a major platform release built on Grails 7, Spring Boot 3, and Java 17. It modernizes the runtime, monitoring infrastructure, database support, and security posture of the platform in one release. Let’s look at what’s changed and what it means for teams running automation in production.

A modern foundation for automation at scale

Rundeck 6.0 delivers four foundational upgrades that collectively keep the automation platform aligned with modern infrastructure:

Java 17 & 25 support. Java 17 is now the minimum runtime, with Java 25 support added out of the box. You get improved garbage collection, memory management, and startup performance. And you can stay current on the latest Java version without waiting for the next Rundeck release.

Native Prometheus metrics. Legacy Dropwizard endpoints have been replaced with Spring Boot Actuator and native Prometheus support. Metrics flow directly into Grafana, Datadog, and other modern observability stacks. No translation layer. Lower latency. More granular job-level data for troubleshooting and capacity planning.

MySQL 8.4 compatibility. MySQL 8.4 is now fully supported, tested against the authentication and connection handling changes in that version. Upgrade your database without waiting on Rundeck.

20+ CVEs resolved. The move to Grails 7 unblocked a backlog of dependency upgrades that resolved over 20 CVEs, including several that were stuck on the older framework. Two security controls also ship in this release: configurable password reset link expiration (7 days by default) and corrected password policy enforcement from System Configuration.

Why this matters

Each of these changes addresses a specific gap, but they compound. A team running Rundeck 6.0 on Java 25, scraping metrics into Prometheus, connected to MySQL 8.4, with 20+ CVEs resolved, is running on a foundation that supports the automation workflows built on top of it without accumulating technical debt underneath.

That matters for autonomous operations. Automation platforms that drift from surrounding infrastructure become bottlenecks. They become harder to monitor, harder to secure, harder to extend. Rundeck and Runbook Automation remove that friction so the automation layer stays aligned with the rest of the stack as it evolves, especially with version 6.0. Every automated remediation that runs contributes data back into PagerDuty.

Paving the path to autonomous operations

Your team shouldn’t be managing technical debt in the automation platform that’s supposed to reduce toil everywhere else. PagerDuty’s approach to autonomous operations:

• Puts intelligent agents to work at scale — handling the noise, accelerating resolution, and keeping you in the loop where it matters

• Deepens the full incident management lifecycle by empowering teams to resolve incidents faster

• Broadens the platform and ecosystem with capabilities that help teams prevent incidents from happening

Rundeck/RBA 6.0 moves us closer to that vision. Ready to see how it can keep your automation infrastructure current and your team focused on building — not maintaining foundations? Learn more at https://www.pagerduty.com/platform/automation/, sign up for a free trial, or connect with your PagerDuty Rundeck account team.