{"id":36281,"date":"2019-12-13T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=36281"},"modified":"2019-12-16T09:48:17","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T09:48:17","slug":"plutora-improves-test-environment-scheduling-and-management-for-o2-telefonica-uks-software-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/12\/13\/plutora-improves-test-environment-scheduling-and-management-for-o2-telefonica-uks-software-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Plutora improves test environment scheduling and management for O2\/ Telefo\u0301nica UK\u2019s software delivery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Telecommunications is an industry which is developing at a rapid rate. Fragmented test environments, limited visibility and duplication of time spent collaborating with diverse information are recurring issues.<\/em> O2<\/sub>\/Telef\u00f3nica UK aimed to improve the speed and quality of application development and delivery through improved management of test environments. It selected a Plutora solution to achieve this. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

O2<\/sub> is a leading mobile network\noperator and the principal commercial brand of Telef\u00f3nica UK Limited. It has\naround 6,700 employees in the UK across three main offices and 450 stores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the frequent challenges O2<\/sub>\nfaced included having a fragmented and abundant number of test environments; limited\nvisibility of test environments had a potential impact on O2<\/sub>\u2019s\ncustomers and the business; and the duplication of time spent collaborating\nwith diverse information sources for non-production environments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The benefits of implementing the Plutora Test Environment and Release Management solution therefore included: centralised management of disparate test environments; live visibility of test environments including live dashboards and reports; new process to manage conflicts and alert key stakeholders to any IT issues or changes in test environment status; and proactive management of non-production environments improved agility and resiliency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of the implementation included: 60+ critical test environments now being managed; 50% reduced unplanned outage of non-prod environments; saving admin time through automated scheduling and coordination; reduced delays on test schedules due to misconfigured environments; improved environment agility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

O2<\/sub> centralised its IT test\nenvironment management <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Processes <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Processes were manual and lacked coordination and collaboration from the different IT teams. It was taking several days to track and rectify unplanned test-environment outages. Conflicts (double-bookings) were common through not having visibility of other bookings on the same environments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges in software delivery<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telecommunications is a fast-moving industry.\nAs a leading brand at the forefront of the industry, O2<\/sub> has\ncontinually innovated new mobile products and has championed customer\nexperience. In order to maintain and extend its leadership position, O2<\/sub>\nmaintains the highest standards in its IT application delivery in order to\nsupport its massive customer base which comprises over 33 million connections.\nHowever, its IT infrastructure experienced a number of challenges which could\nslow down the planned improvements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK IT test environment management group supports a large number of internal teams. They were faced with over 30,000 emails and remedy requests relating to non-production environments. In addition, scheduling environments were not centrally managed, allowing each team to manually add their bookings into spreadsheets with little or no collaboration or arbitration on conflicts. Management of communication and schedules was an unsustainable situation without more effective tools or a lot more people. In the case of unplanned outages (i.e. failures in non-production systems or applications), it could take several days to work through the various architectures to understand where the root cause of a test system outage originated. Furthermore, it drew heavily upon many different support teams which had to be coordinated using manual lists. Ultimately, IT testers were often unable to carry out their testing projects while issues with the test environments were being investigated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Lewis, UAT Test Environment Manager at O2<\/sub>, commented: \u201cOne solution we sought was visibility of all of our test environments to avoid double-bookings and uncontrolled changes and make sure sufficient management is in place to be effective.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK IT test team \u2013 in conjunction with its\nquality test partner, NTT DATA \u2013 decided to undertake a review of IT test\nenvironment management tools to provide a solution to address these issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are rolling out a dynamic, company-wide IT\ntest environment view in the UK where key stakeholders will be able to\nself-serve with customised dashboards and reports and see environment utilisation\ncentrally for the first time. Plus they can be alerted to any potential system\nconflicts, enabling them to have a direct conversation with the stakeholders\naffected and take immediate action,\u201d said Rob Hutchinson, Senior Test Manager,\nIT Billing and Charging, O2. <\/sub> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the main problems was that we just\ndidn\u2019t have visibility of all of our test environments and that frequently\nresulted in double-bookings and uncontrolled changes because there wasn\u2019t\nsufficient management in place to be effective,\u201dsaid Lewis.<\/sub> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partnering with Plutora<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a two-month external review of IT test environment tools, O2<\/sub> and NTT DATA selected Plutora as it is an independent, dedicated, test environment management platform that could be rolled out across the business. Plutora was brought in to deliver the following outcomes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n