Healthcare organizations are increasingly turning to cloud computing to address business and patient needs of their rapidly evolving environment and modernize legacy applications. With Azure DevOps, healthcare IT teams can drive innovation, build new products and modernize their application environment.

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CitiusTech Thought
Leadership
Continuous Integration and
Continuous Delivery on Azure
15 November, 2018 | Authors: Pratik Mistry, Harshal Sawant

2. 2
Agenda
 Overview
 Introduction to Azure DevOps
 Essential CI/CD Workflow
 Key Success Factors for CI/CD
 Azure Deployment
 Summary

3. 3
Overview
 Over the last decade, healthcare application delivery has shifted from large scale, project-
based system implementation and follow-on maintenance to a continuous evolution of
applications
 DevOps is an emerging software engineering trend that brings business, development and
operations teams together to streamline IT and automate processes
 Healthcare organizations are under constant pressure to reduce operational costs while
they struggle to contain rising infrastructure and administrative costs, and adhere to
changing healthcare regulations and standards
 Also, patients are now accustomed to 24/7 availability and service from retailers and
financial institutions. They expect and demand the same level of access / quality from
healthcare organizations
 Cloud computing solutions (public, private or hybrid) have matured significantly over the
past 3 to 5 years. They now provide equivalent or better service levels as internal IT
organizations, but at a significantly lower cost
 Healthcare providers are increasingly turning to cloud computing to address business and
patient needs of their rapidly evolving environment and modernize legacy applications
 In this article, we share our perspective on key execution details for implementing
automated continuous integration and deployment pipelines on Azure

4. 4
Introduction to Azure DevOps
DevOps for healthcare applications can be categorized into 3 categories.
Azure Cloud
Azure VMs Azure Container Service Azure App Services
A B C
DevOps and Azure infrastructure need new skillsets around preparing, managing, and developing
applications on the platform. These skillsets need to be part of business plans from the start.
Infrastructure
Platform (IaaS)
Best Suited for
• Big Data
• Legacy apps
• Replacing / extending
current data center
infrastructure
Container
Platform (CaaS)
Best Suited for
• Microservices
• Porting legacy
application to Cloud
• Cloud provider
agnostic
Application
Platform (PaaS)
Best Suited for
• Microservices
• Auto scaling
• Cost effectiveness
• Faster time to market

5. 5
Essential CI/CD Workflow
Typical Steps
 Developer checks issue tracker for bugs or change requests, makes the changes to the code and
checks-in the code in the SCM
 The CI and CD tools are triggered via hooks. The tools build and then run the tests
 Once the test is executed successfully, the CD tool deploys the application on environment
 If the build or tests fail, the CI server alerts the team
 The team fixes the issue at the earliest opportunity
Developer
Reviews
Code commit is
linked to the issue id
SCM triggers CI/CD tool via
Configured hooks
Build is linked
to the issue id
CI tool triggers Test tools
based on build type
CD tool triggers appropriate infrastructure
Deployment code depending on build type
Infra code sets up the environment
and deploys the build
Issue Tracker CI/CD Tool
SCM (Source Code
Management
Test Tools / Harness
Infrastructure automation/
deployment
Stacks/ Environment

6. 6
Key Success Factors for CI/CD
Templates and Blueprints
Provide the ability to design, manage, and
build underlying components that define
services. Topology, configuration, OS and S/W
packages included for Server Provisioning or
Application Provisioning.
Automated Testing
Plays a crucial role in successful DevOps
implementation. Saves time, allows
repeatability, reduces human error and helps
optimize costs.
Monitoring and Health Check
Used to track performance during each stage
of the delivery pipeline. Covers application
log output, server health, development
milestones, security vulnerabilities,
deployments and user activity.
High Availability and Scalability
Ensures that application s are operational,
functional, and usable for fulfilling user /
business requirements. Key metrics include
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) & Mean Time
to Repair (MTTR).
Security
DevSecOps involves security checks earlier in
the life cycle of application development so
that it minimizes vulnerabilities and brings
security closer to IT and business objectives.
Deployment Strategy
Provides an approach to change or manage an
application, while ensuring Zero Downtime.
Blue-Green Deployment is the most common
strategy. A/B Deployment and Canary
Deployment are other alternatives.

7. 7
Azure Deployment: Typical Build & Release Pipeline A
Build
(Agent)
Code
Compile
PackageUnit Tests
Static Code
Analysis
Version
Release
(Agent)
Version
Changes
Pre- Deployment
Validation
Infrastructure
Provision
Build Pipeline
Validate
Deployment
Infrastructure
Validation
Deployment of
Artifacts
Monitoring
Deployment
Strategy
Infrastructure
De-Provisioning
Registry
1
2 3 4
5
8 7 6
CI
Release Pipeline
Artifact
Repository
InfrastructureasCode
App.Releases
DevSecOps

8. 8
Azure Deployment: IaaS (Virtual Machines) (1/2)
Azure PowerShell Application TestingAzure Monitor
Security Verification TestARM TemplatesARM Template Checker
Azure Marketplace
Build
(Agent)
Code
Compile
PackageUnit Tests
Static Code
Analysis
Version
Release
(Agent)
Version
Changes
Pre- Deployment
Validation
Infrastructure
Provision
Build Pipeline
Validate
Deployment
Infrastructure
Validation
Deployment of
Artifacts
Monitoring
Deployment
Strategy
Blue / Green
Infrastructure
De-Provisioning
Registry
1
2 3 4
5
8 7 6
CI
VSTS
Release Pipeline
Blob Storage
Artifact
Repository
Azure PowerShell
InfrastructureasCode
App.Releases
Azure File Copy Task
A

9. 9
Azure Deployment: IaaS (Virtual Machines) (2/2)
Key Ops Metrics
 High availability and zero
downtime
 Process level alerts can be
configured
 Easy customization
 Granular level control over the
infrastructure
 Detailed audit logging
 No limitation on types of
programming languages to choose
Building Blocks
 Azure supports infrastructure provisioning using
ARM templates (preferred) and supports open-
source technologies like Terra Form, etc.
 Configuration management using Azure
Configuration Manager or leading industry tools
like Ansible, Puppet, Salt Stack, etc.
 Tasks like ARM Template Checker and Security
Verification Tests to automate security validations
 Application monitoring using Application Insights
 Deep infrastructure monitoring using log analytics,
management solutions, network monitoring and
service map
Key Technologies / Tools
Azure Resource Manager
VNET
Virtual Machine
Load Balancer
Key Vault
PowerShellTerra Form
Blob Storage
Azure Monitoring
VSTS
Azure Automation ARM Template
A

10. 10
Azure Deployment: Containers
Azure PowerShell Application TestingAzure Monitor
VSTS TaskSecurity Verification TestARM TemplatesARM Template Checker
Azure Container Registry
Build
(Agent)
Code
Compile
PackageUnit Tests
Static Code
Analysis
Version
Release
(Agent)
Version
Changes
Pre- Deployment
Validation
Infrastructure
Provision
Build Pipeline
Validate
Deployment
Infrastructure
Validation
Deployment of
Artifacts
Monitoring
Deployment
Strategy
Blue / Green
Infrastructure
De-Provisioning
Registry
1
2 3 4
58 7 6
CI
VSTS
Release Pipeline
Blob Storage
Artifact
Repository
Azure PowerShell
InfrastructureasCode
App.Releases
Azure Container Service
Container
Orchestration
9
B

11. 11
Azure Deployment: PaaS (1/2)
App Service Manage Task Application TestingAzure Monitor
VSTS Web Deployment TaskSecurity Verification TestARM TemplatesARM Template Checker
Azure Marketplace
Build
(Agent)
Code
Compile
PackageUnit Tests
Static Code
Analysis
Version
Release
(Agent)
Version
Changes
Pre- Deployment
Validation
Infrastructure
Provision
Build Pipeline
Validate
Deployment
Infrastructure
Validation
Deployment of
Artifacts
Monitoring
Deployment
Strategy
Blue / Green
Infrastructure
De-Provisioning
Registry
1
2 3 4
5
8 7 6
CI
VSTS
Release Pipeline
Blob Storage
Artifact
Repository
Azure PowerShell
InfrastructureasCode
App.Releases
C

12. 12
Azure Deployment: PaaS (2/2)
Key Ops Metrics
 Live metric streams like incoming
requests, requests per second,
request duration, memory usage,
CPU usage, unhandled exceptions
per second, etc.
 App Failure – HTTP req. failures,
page faults, server exceptions, etc.
 Performance – server response
time, load time, latency, etc.
 Usage-specific metrics like number
of active users, sessions, page
views to be recorded
Building Blocks
 Infrastructure provisioning using ARM templates.
Linked ARM templates can be used to manage
multiple ARM templates
 ARM Template Checker task to check security
settings in ARM templates
 Security Verification Tests (SVTs) task to check
secure configuration for deployed resources
 Deployment slots for deploying new release
 Blue Green Deployments implemented by swapping
staging deployment slot with production
 Inbuilt load balancer helps auto-scale app services
Azure Resource Manager
Load Balancer
Key Vault
PowerShellTerra FormAzure Monitoring
VSTS Azure Automation
Application Insights
ARM Template
Key Technologies / Tools
Azure App Service
Rest APIWeb APP
Blob Storage
Azure Functions
C

13. 13
Summary
 VSTS and Team Foundation Server (TFS) both provide an integrated,
collaborative environment that supports Git, Continuous Integration, and
Agile tools for planning and tracking work
 Azure provides DevOps offerings for IaaS, CaaS and PaaS based applications
 Adopting DevOps processes and establishing collaboration amongst teams
can enable healthcare organizations to drive innovation, build new
products and modernize their existing application environment

14. 14
Thank You
Authors:
Pratik Mistry
Harshal Sawant
thoughtleaders@citiustech.com
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