10 times shorter mean time to recovery and 99.7% availability after implementing DevOps in banking

Innowise has implemented a DevOps toolkit to manage digital banking solutions.

Customer

Industry

Banking, FinTech

Region

Client since

2021

Our client is a multidepartmental bank with more than 80 digital products, including proprietary software, CRM systems, ERP systems, web portals, and mobile apps.

Detailed information about the client cannot be disclosed under the provisions of the NDA.

Challenge: Facing the issues of scattered codebases, hampered communications, and longer time-to-market

DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines are crucial components of software development in the banking sector, where digital software is integral for the smooth running of internal and external processes. Despite the availability of several digital solutions, some organizations fail to adopt a holistic approach to building and managing them. This results in delays in product delivery, which leads to frustration among stakeholders and lost profits. Organizations that overlook the importance of DevOps practices may struggle with scattered knowledge and codebases, lack testing automation, and face longer time-to-market. Our client did not have a clear vision for software development from ideation to delivery, which hindered their ability to benefit from DevOps in the banking sector.

Solution: Extensive DevOps toolkit adoption to manage the banking software lifecycle

To establish transparent, manageable, and predictable development processes, Innowise has built a complex DevOps environment that includes tools to manage application lifecycle management, communications, continuous integration, testing, deployment, monitoring, etc. We opted for Atlassian products due to their straightforwardness, ability to integrate with other tools, and cost-effectiveness, considering our proficiency and the requirements of the client's business.

Application lifecycle management and communications – Jira software

We configured Jira to manage development processes since it allows for seamless implementation and employment of agile management. Moreover, we decided to use Confluence to create and store documentation previously scattered across multiple corporate documents and files. Finally, we integrated Microsoft Teams to facilitate real-time communication between development teams and external partners by configuring customized plugins and automation features like chats.

Version control system & continuous integration – Bitbucket, Bamboo, Jenkins

Though our client maintained a wide array of digital banking solutions, they did not have a centralized repository to store code. To ensure streamlined application delivery pipelines and version control, our project team organized training sessions on GitHub usage before transitioning to Bitbucket. Additionally, we deployed Jenkins to facilitate continuous integration and delivery.

Testing & security scans – TEST-IT, Black Duck, SonarQube

Our team implemented TEST IT to perform manual and automated testing and ensure autotest integrations, extended public APIs, test libraries, convenient test script editors, versioning, and historical data management. To eliminate the slightest risk of breaches, we employed Black Duck for compliance with security policies and SonarQube for code quality and cleanliness. These tools allowed our vetted specialists to monitor vulnerabilities in software and maintain hassle-free product quality.

Deployment & configuration and artifact management – Bamboo (Jenkins optionally), Ansible, Packer, Nexus Repository Pro

In addition, our specialists ensured deployment automation. Software developers were responsible for writing code and deploying it, but without experienced DevOps engineers, they encountered pitfalls and missed deadlines. We chose Bamboo as a fundamental tool for building, testing, and delivering the software due to its seamless integration with existing infrastructures and a wide range of third-party plugins. Moreover, our project team adopted IaC principles to manage deployments, with Terraform for managing cloud environments, Ansible for configuring virtual machines, and Packer for preparing and unifying images. Also, Nexus Repository Pro was deployed in this stream as it can handle massive amounts of product and development data.

Monitoring/logging – Zabbix, Grafana, Elasticsearch, Loki

Our team prioritized monitoring and analyzing events in the client’s infrastructure. For this, Innowise implemented Zabbix to monitor the physical equipment and communication channels and provide visual displays of the infrastructure state. We also integrated the tool with messengers to send alerts and notifications about the current status and progress. To collect, store and analyze log files and product metrics, we used the Logstash, Elasticsearch, and Kibana capabilities. Lastly, we leveraged Grafana and Loki to provide real-time views of developing applications and continuous monitoring of their progress.

Orchestration – Kubernetes, VMware Tanzu

To host and orchestrate containerized applications, we implemented virtual machines and physical hosts, Kubernetes and VMware Tanzu accordingly. This approach provides independence from cloud service providers and a high level of performance, resource utilization, and centralized management.

Infrastructure – Microsoft Azure, VMware, Hyper-V

To ensure accessibility and capability of infrastructure solutions, our DevOps specialists adopted hybrid cloud approaches based on a mixed computing environment. We recommended VMware and Microsoft product stacks for the private data center infrastructure to ensure the equipment’s fault tolerance. As for a public cloud provider, our choice was Microsoft Azure, which offers easy hosting of Windows applications on globally distributed data centers.

Additionally, we set up ongoing feedback channels from both banking departments and end users to improve product quality and implement immediate changes.

Technologies

DevOps

Jira, Microsoft Teams, Confluence, Bitbucket, Bamboo, Jenkins, Load Runner, Selenium, JUnit, TEST IT, SonarQube, Anchore, Black Duck, Fortify, Ansible, Packer, Nexus Repository Pro, Zabbix, Grafana, Elasticsearch, Loki, Kubernetes, VMware Tanzu, Microsoft Azure, VMware, Hyper-V

Process

The project was time-consuming, resource-intensive, and involved rethinking the software development approaches and practices. In addition to deploying the DevOps toolkit, we provided training for IT specialists to operate new solutions and update legacy applications using CI/CD pipelines.

Our company started the project in September 2019. Upon eliciting tech and business requirements, we assembled a team consisting mainly of DevOps professionals with relevant expertise and industry-centric experience.

We used Scrum methodology with concurrent sprints to manage the project and track achievements. Besides overseeing the project, our team leads kept in touch with the customer, providing timely feedback and adopting changes in the scope.

Currently, Innowise continues to configure, deploy, modernize, and maintain DevOps tools, ensuring permanent support and consulting customer’s employees.

Team

Cloud Architect

Project Manager

Business Analysts

DevOps Engineers

System Engineers

Results: Streamlined management of digital solutions under the DevOps toolkit

By incorporating the best DevOps practices, Innowise transformed the client’s software development processes. This transformation enabled the client to enjoy several advantages, including streamlined communication between stakeholders and IT departments, predictable and efficient management of digital solutions, and a faster time-to-market for products. Other significant benefits of implementing DevOps in banking included increased efficiency, reduced risk of defects, log generation, quicker product delivery, the ability to roll back quickly if necessary, improved planning, and effective testing and monitoring. We improved the customer’s operational metrics for mission-critical systems by increasing availability from 96% to 99.7% and reducing mean time to recovery from 5 hours to 30 minutes while mean time to failure went from days to weeks.

Project duration

September 2019 - Ongoing

99.7%

availability after the upgrade

10 times

shorter mean time to recovery

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