Complex Application DevOps Integration and Installation Automation

The Problem

Our client is an independent software vendor making the transition from SaaS-only to providing on-premise and private cloud installations. It had been offering software only in a multi-tenant cloud service, but found that its customers in regulated industries required secure, on-premise, or virtual private cloud installations. Prior to our engagement, the need to install components of the software across a minimum of five servers, each configured with dozens of packages, caused delays in implementing Proofs-of-Concepts, disrupted the sales process, and created an ongoing support burden for both the support team and their end-user organizations.

The Solution

OpStack performed an analysis of the situation, designed, and then constructed an extensible automation platform for our ISV client that:

• Installs the client’s software in on-premise, or virtual private cloud environments.
  • Runs interactively or unattended.
  • Prompts users for any missing configuration elements.
• Performs validation of prerequisites.
• Leverages a major open source orchestration tool to:
  • Install or upgrade the operating system, supporting packages, and application components as needed for each server in the customers environment.
  • Fully configures DNS, SSH, firewalls, and VPNs to support the application.
  • Distributes SSH keys across the configuration.
  • Allows for site-specific selection of repositories for standard packages.
• Supports installation on multiple Linux distributions and all major cloud providers.
• Centralizes all site-specific options to a single configuration file.
• Logs all steps and, on any error, allows for correction and restart from that or any earlier checkpoint in the process.
• The solution works in both Internet-accessible and air-gapped environments.
• Extends our client’s CI/CD stack to include versioning and packaging of tagged releases.

The Result

• Reduction of average install-time from one week to under an hour.
• The installed application topology for systems built in the cloud, on-prem with Internet connectivity, and on-prem and without access to external repositories is now identical — simplifying product documentation and standardizing support procedures.
• Business impact is both faster time-to-revenue for new clients and lower support costs for the installed base.