DevOps Migration Strategy: Transformation with Platform Automation

Executive Summary

A global leader in pharmaceutical services, known for its innovative solutions and strong customer focus, faced significant challenges in migrating its Omni platform, including Azure, Bitbucket, and TeamCity DevOps pipelines, to an Enterprise DevSecOps platform. The traditional migration process was fraught with inefficiencies, heavily reliant on the Operations (OPS) team, and prone to delays. To overcome these hurdles, the company collaborated with Altimetrik to streamline the migration using an automated, scripted approach, transforming a complex, time-consuming process into a more efficient and reliable one.

Pain Point

The existing Omni platform, encompassing a diverse set of toolsets, had reached the end of its support lifecycle. This obsolescence led to escalating costs associated with maintaining multiple infrastructures and toolsets. Additionally, operating the project without adhering to compliance standards posed significant business risks. The imperative to migrate to a GxP-compliant toolset became clear, not only to mitigate potential conflicts but also to secure the company’s technological future.

Solution

To address these challenges, Altimetrik developed a Python migration script that seamlessly transferred source code to the Enterprise Bitbucket while preserving all history, commits, and necessary privileges. The team also converted build and deployment YAML files from TeamCity and Azure DevOps to ensure compatibility with the Enterprise CI/CD tools, like Jenkins. They meticulously recreated test cases to align with enterprise standards and conducted comprehensive end-to-end testing, ensuring that every component functioned as expected within the new platform.

Achievements and Business Outcomes

1. Introduction of CI/CD as a Service

The successful implementation of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) as a service marked a significant improvement in the efficiency and reliability of the company’s development and deployment processes.

2. Automated Bitbucket Repo Migration

Through automation, the team significantly reduced man-hours required for migration and introduced over 10 enhancements that improved the overall customer experience.

3. Cost Savings through In-House Resources

By leveraging in-house L2/L3/L4 resources for the migration, the company realized substantial cost savings, avoiding the expenses associated with outsourcing the process.

4. Pipeline as Code

The consolidation of over 6,000 stages from TeamCity and Azure DevOps into just 300 pipelines within the Enterprise DevSecOps platform drastically reduced complexity and streamlined operations.

5. Repository Migration and Pipeline Consolidation

The migration of over 15 Bitbucket repositories and more than 1,600 test cases, coupled with pipeline consolidation, simplified the management and tracking of development and deployment activities. The team managed to execute over 500 test cases simultaneously, while also onboarding approximately 150 users to both the Bitbucket and Jenkins platforms.

6. Seamless Migration from Heterogeneous Platforms

The transition from the heterogeneous environments of TeamCity and Azure DevOps to the unified Enterprise DevSecOps platform streamlined the development and deployment processes, making management more straightforward and efficient.

7. Concurrency with a Bucketed Approach

To maximize infrastructure utilization, the team employed a bucketed approach, allowing over 500 regression test cases to run concurrently without compromising the integrity of the underlying infrastructure.

8. On-Time Migration Completion

Despite facing an aggressive deadline, the migration was completed on schedule, showcasing the team’s ability to plan and execute efficiently without requiring any rollbacks.

9. Cost Avoidance through DevSecOps Harmonization

The harmonization of DevSecOps processes led to significant annual cost avoidance, eliminating unnecessary expenses and enhancing overall operational efficiency.

Conclusion

This case study demonstrates how a strategic partnership with Altimetrik enabled a leading pharmaceutical services company to overcome significant challenges in migrating its DevOps pipelines to an Enterprise DevSecOps platform.

Through automation, in-house resource utilization, and a focus on compliance and efficiency, the company not only streamlined its operations but also achieved substantial cost savings and operational excellence.

The successful migration has positioned the company to meet future technological demands while maintaining a high standard of compliance and customer satisfaction.