Overview
In 2023, a prominent university engaged the services of DevOps1, a company renowned for its extensive
expertise in modern engineering practices to devise a strategic solution aimed at streamlining the delivery
cycle
in a highly integrated environment. The envisioned outcome was to effectively virtualise these integrations,
thereby optimising the availability of test environments for dedicated teams to conduct efficient testing.
The primary goal of this collaborative initiative was to expedite software development and delivery
processes, aligning with the university's commitment to innovation and excellence in its technological
endeavours.
Challenges
The pace of software delivery at the University was constrained by the availability of integrated test
environments. Specifically, integration issues with systems such as Salesforce and Adobe are often the cause
of the non-availability of the integrated test environments. This resulted in delays in project deliveries.
The University was trying to accelerate the delivery cycle for changes to their systems, but due to the
highly integrated nature of their systems, they were unable to do so. The University was looking for a
solution to remove the dependency on the availability of low change systems in integrated test
environment(s).
Solution
DevOps1 partnered with SmartBear Solutions to provided a modern
solution to this common problem, the implementation of service virtualisation to mimic
interface responses from Salesforce, thereby removing the dependency on the availability of
Salesforce in integrated test environment(s).
The approach was broken down to:
- Discovery and MVP
- Roadmap and prioritisation
- Implementation and extensibility
During the discovery and MVP(minimum viable product) stage, DevOps1 worked with the University to understand
the current state of the integration landscape and the challenges faced by the University. A tools
selection, infrastructure setup and MVP were carried out to ensure the solution was fit for purpose.
Once the foundational work was completed, DevOps1 worked with the University to develop a roadmap and
strategy for their virtualisation service. This included the identification of the most critical
interfaces to be virtualised and the prioritisation of the interfaces based on the business value.
Conclusion
The collaborative effort between the university and DevOps1, supported by SmartBear
Solutions, serves as a successful use case for addressing software development and integration challenges.