There has never been a more essential time to ensure teams work together and deliver features with speed and efficiency. Implementing DevOps practices into your workflows gives your business the structure for constant evolution, cutting costs and optimising efficiency. This ensures you can grow secure in the knowledge that you have the best systems in place to support your development, using automated processes and a personalised strategy to create resilient, future-proof growth. Here are the 4 layers of DevOps for financial institutions.

Infrastructure to Code

It is important to clarify that the definition of ‘DevOps’ deviates from the perhaps more traditional banking definition, that being a union of Development people and Operations people, but rather it is a combination of Technical Development people and Machine Operations people. The machine operators that would’ve usually built the physical computing infrastructure now work on projects together with developers, becoming a single team. Machine operators are therefore able to help the developers understand how to construct and code the infrastructure of their applications for efficiency and longevity. Essentially, recreating the physical processing power infrastructure within code.

Microservices

Microservices are about system architecture. They are a fragment of code that give every function of an application its own ‘container’. The inputs and outputs of each fragment are static. This means we can change anything in the code without it affecting the rest of the system, giving us independently deployable services, this means we won’t need to do a complete system test or full impact analysis every time we want to make a change.

The benefits of microservices can easily be seen on the world’s most popular website: Google.com, the image sitting above the search bar is a Microservice. Consider how often that image changes? Now compare that with how often you’ve seen Google take down their entire system/website to make sure the image is going to work for everybody on the endless variety of devices that visit the website.

Microservices may be small but when they are appropriately constructed in their fragments, interfaced correctly and built out, microservices can make some of the most complex systems in the world. From collateral management entirely done on the web using microservices to trading systems for bonds and equities, microservices are leveraged to help keep your systems running at all times. Microservices reduce the amount of testing that has to be done substantially, and as many of you know, testing often chews up 30% – 50% of your budget on any well-run project.

Build-to-Test

This is a change in mindset. We used to write a spec, have a committee sit on it and then sign it off, put it under change control, give it to developers to code it, then finally to the quality assurance testing team. Now when using a collection of microservices to meet a customer need, we can build-to-test. This means the code can be built inside the testing tool, the advantage to this is the ease at which we can make changes to or test elements of a system, radically changing the pace at which testing models take place. Through this, by having infrastructure-to-code, developing in microservices, and building to test (all of the above), we achieve what is known as CICD (Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment), and that means we can put changes into production on a regular basis without impacting the client base, even while they are still using the system. So how do we actually code this?

Agile Methodologies

This is where the cultural mind shift occurs. This layer will consist of 3 elements. The 1st is the way in which we conduct our business requirements. Instead of having highly-qualified business analysts sitting down and consulting with users on how things are done, what if now the users can just ‘tell a story’. Perhaps they could say something like “I came in this morning and sat down at my desk and I put my finger on the finger print reader and it gave me a list of things that I have to do today.” That’s an example of a ‘user story’.

For all the technical people reading this: can you imagine what you would be coding if you received that story? Allow me to elaborate, it would go something like this – “I’d need fingerprint recognition, therefore biometrics. Then the application needs to automatically open upon recognition and on the right-hand side the user should see a list of actions that they need to take today.” By building entire pipelines of user stories that meet each specific user’s need, we can describe complex systems in terms that any user can describe.

These then go to squads, the 2nd element, which consists of about 7-12 people. Each squad will receive a number of user stories. What is a squad? A squad has defined roles, it’s made up of a Product Owner, Scrum Master or an Agile Coach and a number of technical and testing roles. In order for these squads to be highly productive they need to be co-operating fully throughout the day. But for those that are offshoring from east to west, or vice-versa, how can your squads be productive when there is up to a 10 and-a-half hour time difference? But if you were to offshore north to south you will be looking at an hour or two in time difference at the most, then you can begin to see highly productive squads who will all be awake at the same time.

Now the 3rd and final element, the squads will be given time boxes, typically 2 to 3 weeks, and they will sit down and create what is called a sprint plan by looking at the number of user stories they have, the size of their squad, how many they can get done within 2 to 3 weeks, and they will plan perhaps the next 3 or 4 time boxes. As they go through the process of developing, testing and putting into production they may need to make adjustments in order to meet that 2 to 3-week period, either by bringing some forward if they’re doing well and ahead of schedule or pushing a couple back to the next sprint if there’s been a delay.

This method enables us to have defined deliverables that can easily be changed. Now, why is that valuable? Ask yourself – how many times have you expected your next-year’s budget to be changed after 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months? How many times has that happened to you in the past? By using these Agile methods, the ability to chop and change means that you can better control your budgets in a very volatile world, and let’s face it, the world has changed.

New Delhi, Oct 12 (PTI) Tech giant Microsoft on Monday said it has partnered with All India Council For Technical Education to empower learners and educators in new-age technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), data science and cloud computing.
As part of the partnership, over 1,500-course modules from Microsoft will be made available to students and educators free of cost through AICTE”s e-learning portal ELIS, a statement said.

Microsoft”s learning resource centre Microsoft Learn has been integrated with the ELIS platform to provide access to personalised learning paths and resources for students, covering a broad range of technologies including AI, IoT, data science and cloud computing, among others, it added.

The collaboration will also provide educators access to online learning paths and instructor-led training material through the Microsoft Learn for Educators platform.

Eligible educators and faculty members can access Microsoft”s ready-to-teach curriculum and teaching materials aligned with industry-recognised Microsoft certifications, it said.

The collaboration with All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) reflects Microsoft”s commitment to building a strong skilling ecosystem in the country and ensure continuity in learning, Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari said.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the need for upskilling and has shown clearly that the future of learning will be profoundly personalised and supported by technology. We are committed to empowering learners and educators across the country to skill themselves in emerging technologies and partner in the journey to thrive in a digital future,” he added.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE, said upskilling is very important to enhance employability opportunities for students.

“AICTE is happy to partner with Microsoft to help students get an opportunity to be hands-on with the latest technology and build products and services for the future,” he added.

Through this partnership, students will also get an opportunity to be hands-on with technology and build for the future with Azure for Students.

Eligible students aged 18 and above can build apps, explore AI, and make the most of big data with access to more than 25 free Azure services along with USD 100 in Azure credit, renewable annually.

To make learning more interactive, Microsoft will host live webinars on next-generation technologies for students of AICTE. To ensure technology benefits everyone, Microsoft will also sponsor 1,000 Microsoft Certification Exam Vouchers spanning different technologies for students from underserved communities. PTI SR BAL