Marc Priolo's presentation at the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2016 outlines Urban Science's journey towards continuous delivery in software development. The company has significantly increased application deployments and reduced manual work while enhancing customer satisfaction by streamlining update processes. Despite successes, challenges remain in shifting mindsets and overcoming bottlenecks within the team.

1. Are we there yet?
Scaling DevOps for continuous improvement
Marc Priolo, Urban Science
DevOps Enterprise Summit 2016

2. v © 2016 Urban Science Confidential
Agenda
• Introduction
• Last time I was here…
• The next step in our journey
• Results
• Remaining challenges
Presenter: Marc Priolo

3. INTRODUCTION

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Marc Priolo, Software Configuration Manager
Focused on helping Urban Science
deliver high-quality software frequently
and reliably through implementing
“Continuous Delivery” best practices.
Over 15 years of industry experience:
• Consultant
• DBA
• Technical Support (manager)
• Release Management (manager)
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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• As business scientists, we invent solutions for mission critical challenges –
we create powerful, prescriptive, never-been-done-before solutions
• Think Big Data “in” & client unique solutions “out”
Presenter: Marc Priolo
More than a consulting firm. More than a software company.

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Global, proven partners
Years of operation: 40
Country Presence: 100+
Offices: 19
Expert employees: 900
Major auto customers: ALL
Dealership customers: 20K +
B2B client satisfaction Highest in industry
Presenter: Marc Priolo

7. LAST TIME I WAS HERE…

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Why: Starting the DevOps journey
Increase Scalability
Increase Consistency
Increase Efficiency
Increase Expediency
Reduce Complexity
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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How: Automate everything
We had a choice.
• The most visible
o Hardest to perform manual deployments & newer projects?
• Reduce human error / complexity
• Minimal speed increase
• Low adoption / high maintenance
• ROI more than ½ a year
• The most mundane
o Mature, established and repetitious deployments.
• Reduce human error / complexity
• Drastic speed increase
• High adoption / low maintenance
• ROI less than two months
• Winner!
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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The journey
We’re just getting
started.
• 2014
o Automate 135 monthly European & USA products
• 2015 and beyond
o Automate the “most visible” & newer projects
o Implement end to end automated functional testing
• Let me tell you where we are at now…
Presenter: Marc Priolo

11. THE NEXT STEP IN OUR JOURNEY

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Provide a pipeline catalogue
Why provide a limited
catalogue?
• Standardization
• Scalability
• Support
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Catalogue offering
Pipeline offerings
1. Static
a. Data
b. Data & Code
2. Dynamic
3. Self-Service/Sandbox*
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Static (legacy) deep dive
– Fixed deployment logic tied to
pipeline
– Fixed pipeline environments
– Static pipeline
Commit
Build, Unit Test &
Package
Deploy to
CI
Deploy to
QA
Deploy to
Staging
Deploy to
Production
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Dynamic deep dive
– Deployment logic checked with code
– Artifact dependency model
– Automated testing, an equal artifact
– Dynamic pipeline environments
– Artifact maturity path
• Dev → QA → RTI → RTD
Presenter: Marc Priolo
Commit
Build, Unit Test &
Package
Deploy to
CI
(Dev)
Deploy to
QA
(QA)
Deploy to
Staging
(RTI)
Deploy to
Production
(RTD)
Deploy to
Smoke
Test
Deploy to
Regression
Deploy to
Nightly
Deploy to
Dev
Deploy to
Preview
Deploy to
Load Test
Deploy to
Mirror
Deploy to
DR

16. RESULTS

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Continuous Improvement (and how!)
2014 2016
Application
Deployments ~1K >50K
Manual Work
Avoided (hours) ~2K ~22K
Full Time Employees
“Re-deployable” ~1 >10
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Business Benefit: Agility and Higher Customer Satisfaction!
We used to request at least five business
days notice prior to an update to:
1) give ample time for programming
2) create deployment package, and
3) reserve deployment slot availability.
Now, our team can perform updates
within one business day from receiving
the request from the client.
Presenter: Marc Priolo
5days
1day
From
to

19. REMAINING CHALLENGES

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Challenges
My coffee is still not Continuously Deployed!!!
Switching from reactive to proactive mindset
Rebalancing roles & expectations
My team a bottleneck…
Education
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Up next
• Automated functional testing
• Integration into new systems
• Operations Dashboards
• Continuously Improve!
• Enhance, evolve, reinvent
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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Links
• Communication resources:
o Toastmasters international = https://www.toastmasters.org/
• Southern California resources (Shameless plug):
o SoCal Continuous Delivery Meetup = https://www.meetup.com/SoCal-Continuous-Delivery-Meetup
o Orange County DevOps Meetup = https://www.meetup.com/Orange-County-DevOps-Meetup
• Urban Science Job opening (Shameless recruiting):
o We’re hiring! = http://www.urbanscience.com/careers/
• DevOps Release Automation platform
o ElectricFlow = http://electric-cloud.com/products/electricflow
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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QUESTIONS?
Presenter: Marc Priolo

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That’s all folks!
Presenter: Marc Priolo