Aquiring Automation

Client Description

The client is an industrial equipment manufacturer and service provider in the USA. More to be added….

Challenges

The client’s software was already developed but was not using best practices of Software Development, code management, etc. Some of the drawbacks of code management were ineffective code repositories, clumsy branching strategies, and disorganized permissions which need to be handled with care. Also, all the procedures of the software such as code-build, packaging, and deployment are all manual and every manual step introduces risk. Any single thing missed or done slightly wrong, has caused the product to work incorrectly. These manual processes take a huge amount of time and downtime for releasing updates of the software. Also, it becomes a very hard time for the client to grow their business beyond 5- 6 clients.

Quick Fix

Csharptek worked on all the challenges of the client’s software and delivered an automated product timely to the client using Azure DevOps automated deployment. We kept on enhancing the information security of the software’s cloud infrastructure and implementing azure automation for the client. Currently, azure automation PowerShell Version 5.1 is used.

Removing Manual Processes and Incorporating Azure Automation

Whether you on is the ultimate need are supporting legacy apps, modernizing the software development process, or innovating new products, you must have a DevOps strategy. Automatiof DevOps and incorporating azure automation from the code generation on the Developers machine till the code is pushed to the version control and even after that to monitor the application and system in production has proved very useful. Csharptek introduced modern technology to execute DevOps strategy using Azure DevOps tool and Azure Cloud platform for acquiring azure automation. Azure DevOps helps to plan smarter, collaborate better, ship the products faster, and acquire azure automation. It comprises a range of services covering the full development life-cycle such as Azure Boards, Azure Pipelines, Azure Repos, Azure Artifacts, and Azure Test Plans.

Azure DevOps Server also supports integration with GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise Server repositories. Adapting a better branching policy was the need of the client’s software where team members can publish, share, review and iterate on the code changes. So we introduced industry-standard branching policies which enable the software to:

• Isolate work in progress from the completed work in the main branch
• Limit who can contribute to specific branches
• Automatically include the right reviewers for every code change
• Enforce best practices with required code

Access levels under Azure DevOps grant or restrict access to select web portal features. We also worked on Permissions and Access Levels for the client’s software to provide different access to different groups.

Appropriate Hosting

The hosting of the software was done on Azure Cloud as it is one of the top cloud providers and provides a simple way for businesses and people alike to host their websites and applications. It provides high availability, a strong security profile (described next), Disaster recovery, and many more. Csharptek implemented appropriate hosting environments for all Dev, QA, Production, etc. The entire operation was performed without having any access to the Azure Portal or the resources which were required to host the different environments. Azure provides different plans for different environments as listed on the Azure Cloud website. When you provision deployment and test environments in Microsoft Azure, you only pay for the resources you use.

Continuous Delivery

Implementing advanced development practices and azure automation using DevOps Pipeline with CI/CD optimized the planning, development, release, and operations of the software. According to the core concepts and tools governing agile software development, CI/CD is the main component that needs to be automated in any organization. Azure Pipelines combines continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) to constantly and consistently test and build the code and ship. Implementing CI helps to catch bugs early in the development cycle, which makes them less expensive to fix and enhances quality. CD is a process by which code is built, tested, and deployed to one or more test and production environments. Once CI is configured, any changes can be pushed to version control repositories which will be automatically built and validated. The next step includes creating a release definition to automate the deployment to one or more environments.

Increasing Security

Csharptek finally enhanced the security of the software using Azure Key Vaults, Azure DevOps library variables, and release administrators. Azure Key Vaults helps in security by securely storing and accessing secrets. You can securely store keys, passwords, certificates, and many other secrets. Azure Key Vault has two service tiers:

• Standard, which encrypts a software key
• Premium, which includes a hardware security module(HSM)

Azure Key Vault greatly reduces the chance that secrets may be accidentally leaked. Using Azure DevOps library variables allows you to store values that you want to control and make available across multiple platforms. Variable groups are defined and managed under Azure Pipelines. They are a protected resource where you can add approvals and check them and set pipeline permissions. Release administrator groups have permission to manage all release operations for different users of the software.

Conclusion

Using Azure DevOps for azure automation has transformed the ability to engage with customers in a more agile way and has optimized their operational processes, thus, increasing the overall performance of the software significantly. The combination of DevOps with azure automation leads to a more efficient SDLC. Using several Azure DevOps tools has helped in improving the code repositories, branching strategies, etc. The major challenge of the software was downtime in releasing updates has also been transformed to uptime using CI/CD of Azure DevOps. Csharptek has overall improved the software’s codebase, deployment procedures, and packaging through Microsoft Azure.

With a Microsoft Silver Cloud Platform Competency, Csharptek aims to turn barriers into miracles for the clients and focuses on building a tailor-made enterprise platform to fulfill their technological needs today, tomorrow, and beyond. Csharptek is an end-to-end IT solution provider company that can help you improve your code and achieve software’s lifecycle azure automation through Azure DevOps. Csharptek has experienced professionals working with Azure Services, SaaS solutions, Managed Services, and many more. So, if you are seeking any kind of Azure Services or some kind of custom software from Microsoft’s Silver Competency, get in touch with our front desk supporting team at info@csharptek.com or call on 18008902630