Business Needs
The platform brings together all the information relating to crime and harm prevention and makes it immediately available at the frontline. It delivers data that’s vital to reduce harm and prevent crime. It’s a huge platform and requires multiple deployments at the customer side during each product release. Each deployment cycle took more than two days manually, causing further delay each time. So we proposed the customer to implement DevOps to automate the process and speed the deployment efficiently. The customer was keener on understanding the process and approach, and we demonstrated our approach with a trial. They were very extremely happy with the positive result and commissioned us to integrate the DevOps approach for deployment as part of the ongoing sprint cycle.

Our Work
To automate the deployment process, we created an Automated Deployment Tool (ADT), which is completely parameterised and scalable. The ADT can deploy the end to end software in 8 hours (average time) and eradicate most of the manual configuration, making it repeatable process and practically error-free. We used an agile development methodology to deliver this. Our team tested the installation of each component separately and then integrated the solution. Based on our experience and understanding and to document the best practices, we created templates for the configuration so that it is not bespoke to a client, but if required can be easily modified. ADT is built using Ansible & Jenkins to support multiple OS (Windows, Linux) and Docker-based architecture. The diagram below explains how the DevOps process is followed by the team.

Business Benefits
The automated deployment process created a significant impact in managing the
deployment efficiently with minimum errors and in less time. Through the automation, we
were able to drastically reduce the deployment time from 2 days to 8 hours. Implementing DevOps not only saved time and cost but also ensured we could manage the delivery deadlines for such a demanding platform.

Our Value Offering
Throughout the course of the engagement, we played the role of a technology partner rather than a service vendor. Our value offering is based on the following key pillars:

• Technology Expertise – Our unparalleled experience in software solutions enables us to understand customer requirements precisely and deliver technical solutions that are aligned to the requirements.
• Service Delivery – Our experience in working on large scale IT programs and our reputation as a trusted technology partner, coupled with a robust set of frameworks, methodologies, and best practices enable us to understand and deliver beyond customer
  expectations.
• Domain Expertise – Our understanding of the public safety domain, especially in the UK geography, enables us to design solutions and work around issues like an extended part of the customer’s team rather than as a service provider.