Release automation reduces testing time by 80%

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Release automation reduces testing time by 80%

DevOps implementation and release automation improved testing time, product quality, and global reach for a leading multi-level marketing company.

Client
A leading multi-level marketing company
Goal
Shorten the release cycle and improve product quality
Technology Tools
Amazon CloudWatch, Elasticsearch, Bitbucket, Jenkins, Amazon ECR, Docker, and Kubernetes
Business Challenge

The client's Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) applications were built using substandard code branching methods, causing product quality issues. The absence of a release process and a manual integration and deployment process were elongating release cycles. Manual configuration and setup of these applications were also leading to extended downtime. Missing functional, smoke, and regression test cases were adding to the unstable development environment. The database migration process was manual, resulting in delays, data quality issues, and higher costs.

Solution
  • Code branching and integration strategy for defects / hotfixes in major and minor releases​
  • Single-click application deployment, including environment creation, approval and deployment activities​
  • Global DevOps platform implementation with a launch pad for applications to onboard other countries​
  • Automated configuration and deployment of COTS applications and databases​
  • Automation suite with 90% coverage of smoke and regression test cases​
  • Static and dynamic analysis implementations to ensure code quality and address configuration issues​
Outcomes

Automation of release cycles delivered the following benefits to the client:

  • Release cycle shortened from once a month to once per week
  • MTTR reduced by 6 hrs
  • Downtime decreased to <4 hours from 8 hours
  • Product quality and defect leakage improved by 75%
  • Testing time reduced by 80%
  • Reach expanded to global geographies
  • Availability, scalability, and fault tolerance enhanced for microservices-based applications
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Order management platform transformation

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

New platform transforms transactions processes

Platform transformation and multi-cloud integration improve multinational publishing company's order management, time-to-market and performance.

Client
Multinational publishing, media, and educational company
Goal
Improve order management and transaction processing capabilities
Technology Tools
AWS EKS, Kong, Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC), Salesforce CRM, Jenkins, Sumo Logic, Datadog
Business Challenge

The client's order management platform was complex and had scalability issues, causing poor customer experience and loss of revenue. The platform was hosted on Oracle cloud, with data stored in different repositories. Services were also hosted in the Oracle cloud, which used the BICC extract to fetch information about order details from Oracle databases. The low performance of customer-facing applications was causing latency and very high transaction processing time.

Solution

Team Iris transformed Oracle-based SOA services into six microservices and migrated them to AWS EKS for autoscaling with self-healing and monitoring capabilities.

We developed services for publishing data to Salesforce CRM for quick order processing and conversions. The BICC system for diversified information and order history was enabled with real-time integration between Oracle Fusion and materialized views for data consumption.

Post migration, these services were registered in Kong for discovery, and a CI/CD pipeline was created for deployment using Jenkins. Sumo Logic was used for monitoring the logs, and Datadog was used to observe latency, anomalies and other metrics.

Outcomes

The order management platform transformation delivered the following benefits to the client:

  • System performance improved by 70%
  • Transaction processing capability increased by 4x
  • Order processing capabilities were enhanced by 200%
  • Total cost of ownership (TCO) was reduced by 30%
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Cloud transformation increases business agility

Cloud transformation increases business agility

Standards & Membership

Global Standards organization increases business agility

Existing applications supporting the business were built on monolith architecture with high technical debt. Iris transformed over 15 years old monolith applications into microservices with automated integration and cloud deployment to deliver faster MVPs.

Client

A non-profit global organization responsible for developing and maintaining standards, including barcodes with over 115 local member organizations and over 2 million user companies

Business Drivers

To deliver MVPs in shorter cycles, reduce Mean Time for Ticket Resolution (MTTR), and lower the total cost of ownership

Tools and technologies

C#/.NET Core, Python/DJango, NodeJS/Express, Azure WAF, Azure APIM, App Services, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Monitor, Application Insights

Global Standards Business Challenge

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The client had a suite of legacy applications to generate barcodes that are scanned globally over 6 million times a day. These applications were built on monolithic architectures using heavy-weight application servers and outdated technologies. This architecture was causing long development cycles, making the organization less competitive. Developers’ productivity was also dropping due to high technical debt.
Global Standards Cloud Solution

SOLUTION

Azure cloud offered some of the foundational features like container orchestration, app engine, integration, API gateway, monitoring and others, making cloud-specific modernization a natural choice.

Modernization strategy involved reverse engineering of on-premise applications, domain-specific grouping the product backlogs by, adopting domain-driven design, and using open source cloud-friendly software with CI/CD pipeline. We transformed the applications to a .NET core framework using cloud-native design principles on Azure cloud. The solution was developed using Azure App Services, front door and service bus following the agile development approach with two-week sprints.

Global Standards Cloud Outcomes

OUTCOMES

Iris helped the client realize multiple business benefits, including higher agility, resiliency and cost-efficient IT operations. Key outcomes of this cloud modernization engagement are:

  • Reduction in Mean Time for Ticket Resolution (MTTR) by 30%
  • Increase in application and infrastructure uptime to 99.9%
  • Real-time visibility of application and infra metrics
  • Enabled bi-weekly MVP delivery

Contact

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Pandemic pivot from physical to online tests

Pandemic pivot from physical to online tests

Education

Pandemic pivot from physical to online tests

System modernization helped a multinational educational testing and assessment organization overcome COVID-19 disruptions to deliver seamless and accurate digital testing.

Client

A leading U.S.-based educational testing and assessment services company

Goal

Switch from in-person to online testing

Tools and technologies

AWS Serverless, Dynamo DB, Node.js, Typescript, Java, Jenkins, and Angular

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Our client, which provides educational testing and assessment services, faced an existential threat with the pandemic-era lockdowns and social distancing
requirements. The testing centers it operated at physical locations were unable to open, leaving thousands of students worldwide in a state of uncertainty. 
Our client had to switch from in-person testing centers to a digital-first or online
testing solution almost overnight. To achieve that, it had to migrate rapidly from legacy systems to the cloud. It also needed to ensure the sanctity and accuracy of its tests while delivering a seamless digital experience to its customers. Other challenges included the ability to dynamically scale up or scale down capacity in response to demand, maintain acceptable service levels, and enable thousands of
expert test raters’ to access and evaluate tests.

SOLUTION

Iris Software stepped in to facilitate a strategic digital pivot in the business model to secure the company’s future. Modernization efforts that were underway at the company even before the pandemic were accelerated as a digital upgrade became imperative. We shifted the data stored on legacy infrastructure was to the cloud. Our team developed a new testing interface that would work overnight across devices, geographies, and different internet connections. Switching the testing operations to the cloud with scalable capacity could help manage the surge in the number of users for the tests Iris also deployed automation and AI tools to deliver superior experiences for test raters. Those who faced challenges while attempting to grade tests were provided with an always-on AI-based solution to automate the troubleshooting and ticketing process.

OUTCOMES

The client now has scalable, digital-first testing capabilities to meet all its testing requirements.

  • Cloud-based testing ensures that students, evaluators, and employees have access on-demand.
  • The remote testing options are accurate, secure and safe from external threats.
  • A strong focus on automation and user experience has allowed for optimized online offerings.
  • Surges in demand for tests can be met rapidly and at scale with minimal intervention.
  • Thanks to the always-on cloud offerings, service levels are easily maintained.
  • The successful digital pivot has led to strong interest in a hybrid operating model to safeguard the business from threats in the future.

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Release automation reduces testing time by 80%

Release automation expedites releases, cuts testing time, and improves product quality for leading marketing company.

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Order management platform transformation

Multi-cloud integration and services development improves order management, time-to-market, and performance.

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A legacy portfolio gets a makeover

Mobility | Software product companies

Conquering the cloud

Iris developed a multi-device mobile ticketing and permitting application that seamlessly integrated with local government systems using cloud technology for more efficient law enforcement.

Conquering the cloud
Iris developed a multi-device mobile ticketing and permitting application that seamlessly integrated with local government systems using cloud technology for more efficient law enforcement.
Conquering the cloud
Iris developed a multi-device mobile ticketing and permitting application that seamlessly integrated with local government systems using cloud technology for more efficient law enforcement.
Conquering the cloud
Iris developed a multi-device mobile ticketing and permitting application that seamlessly integrated with local government systems using cloud technology for more efficient law enforcement.
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A legacy portfolio gets a makeover

Advisory & Consulting

A legacy portfolio gets a makeover

How one of the Big Four advisory firms turned around an under-performing, high-cost application portfolio to meet growing business needs.

Client

The client is one of the Big Four advisory firms.

Goal

Modernize the legacy application to meet growing business needs.

Tools and technologies

MS SharePoint, MS .Net and MS SQL Server.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The client had multiple legacy applications, deployed over the years. Its business needs had grown with time and the applications were falling short of required service levels. The client faced the following challenges:
  • Lack of integration: Most of the integration with upstream and downstream systems was manual, resulting in common data getting obsolete quickly.
  • The client was finding it difficult and expensive to hire and retain resources to maintain the legacy apps.
  • The legacy system was prone to security breaches and couldn’t be deployed on the enterprise-level stack.
  • The existing system supported only single-user applications, and it wasn’t possible to roll them out to multiple users.

SOLUTION

After a comprehensive analysis, we rationalized, classified and distributed the client’s applications portfolio in four areas: 1) upgrade and continue to maintain; 2) rewrite to modernize; 3) consolidate overlapping applications using a framework approach; and, 4) retire. The idea was to deliver maximum value at the lowest cost possible and ensure the system complied with security standards. Here’s what we did for the client:
  • Upgraded the technology stack for the application(s) to lower maintenance costs, improve efficiency and meet growing business needs.
  • Used an in-house technology modernization framework to reduce development and maintenance costs.
  • Consolidated applications that were doing similar tasks and had similar features and modernized them.
  • Retired applications, whose features were available through other applications.
The success of our solution was based on our ability to quickly gather complete information about the existing applications. To do that, we used a questionnaire that we have developed and refined over the years that helps us gather information in a structured and comprehensive manner about the architecture, user base, maintenance methodology, etc.

OUTCOMES

  • With the legacy modernization and application consolidation process, we reduced the client’s application portfolio from 45 applications to less than 10.
  • Reduced the resources required for maintenance from six to two.
  • The framework-based approach accelerated time-to-market, a critical differentiator for the client.

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Setting a high standard for member experience

Setting a high standard for member experience

Standards & Membership

Setting a standard for member experience

We helped a global standards organization build a cloud-native microservices-based platform to store and share data on billions of products with members.

Client

One of the world’s leading retail standards organizations.

Goal

Build a 24x7 cloud-based platform capable of storing and sharing data on billions of products.

Tools and technologies

Java, Python, NodeJS, .NET, Azure PostgreSQL, Azure SQL, MongoDB, Redis, Azure DevOps, Pipelines, Git, Docker, Kubernetes and Azure App Service.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Our client is a global standards organization. Its products and codes are used by millions of brand owners, retailers and supply chain partners around the world.

The organization needed an always-on, scalable cloud-based platform capable of storing and sharing data on billions of products and related information with members and partners across the world.

The client also wanted the ability to onboard member organizations quickly and seamlessly.

They wanted the business capabilities developed on a platform to be available as modern and secure enterprise-level APIs.

SOLUTION

We chose a microservices architecture for high agility, loose coupling, independent deployability and maintainability.

We followed an API design-first approach and designed according to the standards-based API specification (OpenAPI Specification).

In line with best practices for securely publishing and maintaining APIs, our team deployed the Azure API management solution. We used Azure APIM developer portal to deliver a superior developer onboarding experience. The solution had other features as well:

  • Design and implementation of the Azure Virtual network for securely hosting the platform.
  • A cloud-native architecture using the Azure AppService and an Azure-managed Kubernetes platform.
  • Comprehensive performance testing and optimization at all levels to meet strict SLAs.
  • Security testing and vulnerability assessment to ensure secure APIs.

OUTCOMES

  • A robust and secure API platform that handles 200,000 API requests per day
  • 50 million codes uploaded in 40 product categories across more than 130 countries
  • Delivered a developer portal for quick onboarding of application developers
  • New 7-step verification mechanism led to the creation of new revenue streams

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