Effectiveness is to create just ONE system, a SINGLE methodology, always ready to work in any country and adapted to your needs. Until recently everyone worked on different platforms, with different systems and processes. This effected Axa s efficiency and the possibility of working remotely was reduced for the employees. Each country, in the Mediterranean region and Central America, were using different systems. Then along came everis! Then methodology and system infrastructures were standardized allowing programmers in factories to be able to share the same information, processes and ideas. An ALM solution was deployed, not only to establish a common language for all centers but to simplify workflows, this shortened response times and reduced costs. Most importantly, true labor mobility was created among teams of programmers in different countries. Axa, #1 Global Insurance brand worldwide, decided to implement Microsoft with the help of everis due to their knowledge of Microsoft tools, their experience in using them, the implementation in large projects, global and not so global clients. Being Gold partner and having more than 600 experts in Microsoft solutions ensured implementation was success. 100% of the employees in the software factories of Milan, Lisbon and Madrid are joined in an easy and flexible way.
To do your work better. The work we do best. Configuration & Release Management created by everis for AXA, born OUT of the need for improvement AS identified in the study of the work methodology of AXA Medla (Mediterranean Region and Central America) development factories. The ALM solution implemented, complements the out of the box functionality of Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 adding: Custom Team Project Collection structure. Branching policy adapted to the new project structure. Custom work items with custom relationship between them. Work methodology with exclusive workflow and responsibility per rol. Specific code validations prior to submit the changes to the server. User interface for code changes promotion and rollback through branches, and release. Continuous integration with build definitions and automatic deployment considering dependencies. The implementation of this solution will lead to a series of improvements for example resources optimization and quality work from the business point of view.
Among the business improvements achieved are: 1. Component and release control Software components will be detailed-documented with the requirements, thus improving control and prevent errors in deployments. Releases will be fully identified with along with relevant components, versions and requirements. Easy Information system for managers or stakeholders, via Web 2. Automated build, promotions and deployments Automation of builds and promotions assures speed and reliability. Faster deployments with less effort. Decrease the frequency of human errors in procedures. Faster Roll-backs. 3. Continuous integration Avoids collision between developers, thus improving productivity. Reduce downloading times of the software last versions. Incremental update. Allows different providers to work simultaneously on the same release. Eases collaboration among different teams. Continuous quality assurance measures, avoiding reworking at later stages. 4. Agility on on-demand builds Speeds up the rebuild of a version, when removing requirements in acceptance tests. Reduces the possibility of human errors, since only a re-merge is needed. 5. Requirements traceability Eases the reuse of components, since they are labeled at minimum requirement level. 6. Lever for Fast IT Any agile methodology requires an effective configuration management system
If you know where to start you will know where to go. The AXA Medla software factories are in charge of the development and maintenance of a large number of applications supported on various technologies, constructed under different methodologies, with publication in several countries, independent of the factory where they are developed and following different evolution according to the characteristics of the product in each country. In addition, the applications in development were obsolete and large, so therefore, there was reduced control and global knowledge owned. Throughout a working day, there are many changes in code and deployments in a variety of environments. This creates complexity in managing and maintaining the source in the code repositories. There was a lack of a unique repository or centralized way to check the requirements in the deployed entities. Also all test environments were maintained by AXA Tech, an external company belonging to AXA group. This added complexity to the maintenance of such environments. Within the same software factories that belong to AXA, there where groups that worked with a different number of environments and even radically different work methodologies. Removing, adding or changes in requirements implied a great effort to ensure the integrity of the solution. In addition to this, many actions were done manually way and collisions and rework happened when several people were working with the same software. The dependencies between components was not always taken in account and some changes and developments were replaced.
New Project structure For this process, some Team Project collections of different types have been created adapted to the application framework that works on every factory development. This takes into account the different types of applications, technologies, common applications and sub-applications segregated corresponding to the final release country. For each of the defined projects a branching policy is established, that is analogous to the deployment and test environments present today, and potentially existing in the future. Better changeset management The work method created for the customer includs ad-hoc work ítems templates to following the requirements in all stages of the life cycle (changess, promotion between branches, rollback...). It works by unifying all the changes in different files in one entity, and this entity is promoted between branches in one step. The process has different roles, and each role has a specific responsibility and actions to carry out. This actions are linked together by an ad-hoc workfkow design for this method of work. It can then be adapted for each software Factory depending of the particularities they have.
Easy promotion and roll-back Work item make it easier to change set promotion between the branches, even if you are doing a forward or a reverse integration (if the source code fails). The dependency between the work items provokes sorted movements between the branches; this ensure is the integrity of the versions in every branch. To achieve this, our solution provides a user interface created ad-hoc to simplify these tasks and users don t need to do anything. The solution provides policy rules to send the changes to the TFS Server ensure the integrity of the branches and reduce to a minimum the mistakes in these operations. Deploy automation When the changes are checked-in in every branch, TFS triggers a Build&Deploy process, even if the execution is automatic or manual. This different behavior depends on the responsibility of the environment, because this customer has an External provider for the infrastructure. Our solution provides for automatic deploy went of the following technologies:.net (Windows service, WCF, Web applications) Visual Basic 6 ( COM Objects) SQL Server Java Oracle SAS CSF For some technologies, the execution and deployment must be included in the release. To achieve this, our solution provides a user interface to do this configuration.
2 weeks to go, 6 challenges to meet, 1 message of congratulations: the project is yours We had a previous phase with the objective to successfully achieve the following six topics to have the oficial go ahead from the Business decision maker. And we must successfully accomplish these six topics within two weeks: 1. Global and detailed Plans. 2. Scope of deliverables: White Paper for Standard Implementation for technologies.net & Java Process of Configuration & Release Management o Description of the process. Definitions. Basics Working method o Set of procedures to be used by the users. o Procedures to be used by the Configuration Managers Training Material o Material supporting training for: Users Configuration Managers Method of Implementation of the solution o Structures method for implementation in an standard entity of the solution (Java &.Net) Guide for Improvements
o Practical guide for Head of CM, It describes how to improve the standard implementation. 3. Draft 0 of: Process of Configuration & Release Management (Description of the process. Definitions. Basics). 4. Infrastructure defined for Axa Assicurazioni. 5. Infrastructure in Lisbon reviewed. 6. Project Governance. To do this, we have to agree on a global project plan, prepare the infrastructure for two of three implementations, define the project governance, prepare the index for all the documentation and the initial version for the methodology document and decide what ALM tool is the best for this approach. We had a number of meetings with all the relevant people, dealing with the methodology, design of the global project plan and after a sustained effort we accomplished the mission, successfully a chieving the six topics goals. Mission accomplished. All goals completed! Development improvements Reduce development workload due to reduction of collisions between teams. Increase Agility on demands, especially in last minute changes. Increase reusing of components Work branch incrementally updated and downloaded
When a requirement is finally removed or postponed, it is much easier to re-merge Release and deploy improvements Minimize errors in deployments avoiding "business time" stopped Continuous integration: changes are exclusive, avoiding collisions Build and promotion procedures could be automated, for every environment and technology. Faster software placing in production environment and rollbacks when are needed. Work methodology improvements Lever for Fast IT methodologies. Standard methodology for SW Configuration Management, controlling the component versions, deployments and releases. Repository and tracking improvements Improved visibility of the functionality deployed or in development Improved capacity to reuse developed components Centralized and controlled repository Every change labeled with the requirement ID, allowing complete traceability of code that affects a given requirement Host Platforms stick to their procedures