The document discusses the benefits of integrating DevOps practices within the Ignition industrial application platform to enhance software development and deployment processes. It emphasizes the importance of rigorous testing, change management, and collaboration between development and operations to prevent common issues like production failures. A live demo illustrates the use of DevOps tools for managing multiple environments and facilitating seamless deployment, ultimately resulting in reduced operational risks and faster project turnaround times.

2. Co-Presenter
Speakers
Kent Melville
Sales Engineering
Manager,
Inductive Automation
Mark French
Director of
Operations,
Sepasoft
Ryan Crownover
Integration Manager,
Vertech

3. • Unlimited licensing model
• Cross-platform compatibility
• Based on IT-standard technologies
• Scalable server-client architecture
• Web-based & web-managed
• Web-deployed designer & clients
• Modular configurability
• Rapid development & deployment
Ignition: Industrial Application Platform
One Universal Platform for HMI, SCADA, MES & IIoT:

4. Agenda
• Introduction to Ignition
• Why DevOps?
• Story: The Problem and The Solution
• Live Demo
• Conclusion
• Audience Q&A

5. Legacy Approaches
● Waterfall
● Agile without Operations testing and feedback
● These approaches can provide good outcomes,
but typically at higher cost, reduced feature-
sets, and longer delivery times.
Why DevOps?

6. Development and Operations Together - DevOps
● Personnel
○ Involving Operations in Testing
○ Environment replicating production
● Technical
○ Scripting/automating the chain of code handling from
development through production monitoring
Why DevOps?

7. Currently a hot topic in software engineering
● Process approach driven by end-user needs
● Logical next step from agile development approach
● Results in a more stable software environment
while delivering features needed by end-users
Why DevOps?

8. The Ignition Platform can support and thrive within a DevOps framework.
● Flexibility of the Ignition platform, such as integrating
directly with Git, and the variety of host systems,
allows integration with DevOps tools and modeling
of production environments in a DevOps framework.
Why DevOps?

9. Change Management
● Provides a framework for deploying code through test to production
○ First by isolating development and test from production
○ Documenting movement of code between environments
○ Providing review opportunities between each environment
to ensure change management policies
Why Use DevOps Practices?

10. Rigorous Testing of Deployment Procedures
● Deployment is a common failure point
○ “It worked in test”
● A specific scenario can be tested repeatedly until
stakeholders have assurance production
deployment will be successful
● Ensure proper deployment procedures (such as
backups) are performed every time
Why Use DevOps Practices?

11. Ideal to work with a Certified Integration Partner
● Integrators have skill set with DevOps tools
● Leverage the experience from several projects
● Typically shorter-term projects
Why Use DevOps Practices?

12. Developer “Dave” is tasked with improving their existing Ignition solution.
● He is asked to create a new screen to allow the user to create manual alerts
that will send SMS messages to a specified roster.
Story: The Problem 1

13. ● Dave builds, tests, and deploys the new Alarm Notification Pipeline with an
accompanying alert view and updated navigation.
● He sends out a test message to a small roster and heads home for the day.
Story: The Problem 2

14. ● Dave wakes up the next morning to chaos. The production line is down and
the SCADA screen needed to reset the faults has disappeared!
Story: The Problem 3

15. ● Unfortunately, this story is very common in our industry and the solutions are
not always this simple. The bug could have easily caused any of the following
worse outcomes:
○ Producing non-conforming product that goes unnoticed for hours or even days.
○ Preventing critical sensor measurements from being recorded that are necessary for product
certification.
○ Sending erroneous data to the ERP that is still valid, causing wildly incorrect financials.
Story: The Problem 4

16. DevOps changes everything:
● Just one of the following DevOps practices would have prevented this situation:
○ Only releasing/modifying code to production through a controlled process.
○ Having a library of regression testing to be executed in a Test or Staging environment.
○ Properly implemented version control.
Story: The Solution

17. Demo

18. What did we just see?
● Multiple Environments
○ Dev - The only place you make changes (the only place you open the designer).
○ Test - A safe place to see how your changes affect the whole system.
○ Staging - A final validation as close to the production environment as possible.
○ Production - A system that is not touched outside of the controlled process.
● Source Control
○ Integrated version control allows for easy visibility of changes
● Deployment Processes
○ DevOps tools give you a standard way to migrate changes between environments.
○ Self-Documenting Pipelines provide simplified traceability.
○ Eliminates the manual steps prone to user error (project exports, gateway backups, etc.).
○ Minimizes downtime and operational risk.
Recap

19. Conclusion
In turn, this allows for:
● Flexible priorities
● Rapid turnaround times
● Coordination of multiple developers
● Minimum downtime risk
● Minimum operational risk
DevOps provides the structure for:
● Multiple Environments (Tiers)
● Source Control
● Isolated Development
● Deployment Processes
● Continuous Integration
● Delivery (CI/CD)

20. Ready for the Next Step?
Schedule a free design consultation with
Vertech:
http://www.calendly.com/vertech/devops

22. Join us for the 2021 Ignition Community Conference
on September 21 & 22!
● Keynote
● Developer Panel
● Discover Gallery
● Build-A-Thon
● Community Sessions
● Industry & Integrator Panels
● Interactive video chat platform
● Register for free at: icc.inductiveautomation.com