DevOps, as the combination of development and operations practices, remains one of the leading trends in the software development market. Despite its widespread recognition, many software companies remain unaware of how to properly implement DevOps methodology and, hence, reap its benefits.
In this article, we reveal how Agiliway facilitated the adoption of DevOps for a client in the automotive industry, resulting in advancing their CI/CD processes, improving product quality, and reducing cost and time spent on the development and further maintenance and support.
Project Background and Challenges
The main headache for the client was caused by having several distributed development teams with each team frequently deploying their piece of code to the development server and it would overwrite the previously deployed code of another team. Such issues with code management and deployment often led to system failures or disruptions during the development stage.
Initially seen as something rather small, later revealed some more development issues that would set back the project’s growth. Having identified these issues, the Agiliway team was hired to help fix them and consult the client on further steps during the next stages of the project implementation.
To tackle the client’s concerns, the following steps were established as the most significant to make:
- analysis of the existing workflows and development processes
- building robust infrastructure utilizing CI/CD practices
- introducing the development teams to the principles and benefits of DevOps, emphasizing the importance of each and every release.
What Solutions Were Provided?
One of the key changes was made by introducing source and version control practices to track code changes and, therefore, mitigate conflicts. Separate branches allowed simultaneous development without interfering with code integrity. This step also saved a lot of time, hence, cost on development, since separate teams could work on different parts of the project and their deployments would not disrupt the entire system operations.
The next step was CI/CD configuration that automate code integration across servers. This step was necessary to facilitate the development process and ensure faster time to market the ready product.
Introducing code sniffers and unit tests to ensure code stability before deployment. With the help of a code sniffer, the development team secured proper code verification to avoid controversies and failures in the system. Next, unit tests were performed and, if the system showed no error, deployment to the server started. If an error occurs, the system sends notifications on where the changes are necessary before continuing with the deployment.
The use of Docker was suggested to facilitate the project setting and reduce risks related to the environment the project is deployed. Unified development environments proved to be an effective measure of ensuring the rapid introduction of a new person on the project allowing establishing a new environment within mere minutes.
The final step was to establish a process for monitoring and alerting that enables collecting and processing data from production servers. These include user activity, system logs, server loads, etc. as well as alerting the client in case of disruption or any suspicious activity.
What Value Did the Client Receive?
The systematic approach toward the development process management involving DevOps implementation yielded significant benefits for our client.
First of all, the changes accelerated release cycles by up to 20% through automated integration and error detection. Secondly, enhanced product quality was achieved via automated testing and version control, subsequently leading to increased customer satisfaction. Thirdly, onboarding time was significantly reduced from several days to minutes with the help of dockerization.
And, overall, it became simpler to identify and predict any pressing needs of the projects.
Summary
Agiliway’s DevOps solution enabled the client to optimize their processes and enhance product delivery. These achievements were realized with minimal investment, consisting of a few weeks of initial setup and rather small ongoing maintenance and support efforts.
For organizations seeking similar benefits, Agiliway experts are ready to provide a detailed plan for your organization to benefit from adopting DevOps services.