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Month: December 2020

About TCS

TCS

TCS ensure the highest levels of certainty and satisfaction through a deep-set commitment to our clients, comprehensive industry expertise and a global network of innovation and delivery centers. Our mission is to help customers achieve their business objectives by providing innovative, best-in-class consulting, IT solutions and services and to make it a joy for all stakeholders to work with us.

We function as a full stakeholder to business, offering a consulting-led approach with an integrated portfolio of technology led solutions that encompass the entire Enterprise value chain. Our Customer-centric Engagement Model defines how we do engage with you, offering specialized services and solutions that meet the distinct needs of your business.

We build bespoke teams around your domain and technology requirements drawn from our talent pool of over 453,540 global professionals including 36.4% women from 147 nationalities. Our domain expertise has been built upon decades of experience working across industries and this knowledge underpins our suite of solutions.

Our organization structure is domain led and empowered to help provide Customers a single window to industry specific solutions. Agile industry units have embedded capabilities to enable rapid responses that provide a competitive edge to our Customers. This is coupled with a unique Global Network Delivery Model™ (GNDM™), spanning 40 global locations, that is today recognized as the benchmark of excellence in technology deployment.

We have made significant investments in Digital platforms and products spanning Technology Products, Horizontal Platforms and Products, Vertical Platforms and Products.

 

About Boozallen

boozallen

Boozallen are a global firm of approximately 27,600 diverse, passionate, and exceptional people driven to excel, do right, and realize positive change in everything we do.

We bring bold thinking and a desire to be the best in our work in consulting, analytics, digital solutions, engineering, and cyber, and with industries ranging from defense to health to energy to international development.

We celebrate and value diversity in all its forms; it’s something we truly value as a multicultural community of problem solvers. We believe in corporate and individual citizenship that make our communities better places for all.

We have one guiding purpose—to empower people to change the world. Our founder, Edwin Booz said it best: “Start with character… and fear not the future.” We bring a ferocious integrity to not only train our clients to tackle the problems they face today, but to help them change the status quo for tomorrow. Each day, we imagine, invent, and deliver new ways to better serve our employees, our clients, and the world.

 

Synovus Migrates and Syncs Records from Microfocus ALM 12.53 to Azure DevOps using Kovair QuickSync

 

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Synovus, a major regional bank in Columbus, Georgia, USA were using Microfocus ALM 12.53 to manage their requirements and QA activities. Based on organization-wide changes in their internal software development processes and policies, Synovus decided to move from Microfocus ALM 12.53 to Microsoft Azure DevOps. This raised the need for migrating the existing data of Microfocus ALM to Azure DevOps where the future QA activities will be performed. It is not only the records but also the links between these items under the specific area paths that were required to be migrated from Microfocus ALM to Azure DevOps along with the attachments. For migrating approximately 65000 records from Microfocus ALM to Azure DevOps, at first they approached a very large reputable India based Services company which eventually failed to perform the migration successfully. Afterwards, this job was assigned to Kovair through one of their other partner Opteamix which is a Indo/US Services company. Our partner approached us and Kovair QuickSync was jointly proposed to Synovus for this migration.

Challenges

Data Migration from one tool to the other always brings along certain challenges as mentioned below:
  • The volume of data to be migrated from Microfocus ALM was in thousands and migrating these without automation was a mammoth task for Synovus
  • Specific interrelationships were to be migrated – Specific relationship link migration out of all the existing relation links was a challenging task.
  • Being cross-vendor tools, one from Microfocus ALM and the other from Microsoft, there exists no out-of-the-box connectivity between them.
  • Microfocus ALM 12.53 and Azure DevOps have contrasting differences in the data models for various artifacts.
  • Records from multiple Microfocus projects were to be migrated into Azure DevOps projects. Merging items from multiple Microfocus ALM projects to fewer structured Azure DevOps project was another big challenge for this project.
  • Synovus was using several AD users not having access to the Azure DevOps Organizations. Mapping and migrating those users were a challenging job.
  • All Attachments and Comments associated with all Microfocus ALM artifacts including Design Steps and Call Tests must be migrated to Azure DevOps.
Last but not the least, Synovus also wanted to Synchronize the records that were entered in Microfocus ALM during migration after the entire migration was over. All these challenges added up to the complexity of the data migration and made it extremely challenging to be done manually.

Kovair Solution

Kovair, in the first step of the migration, started understanding the data structure and reaching a consensus on the migration use cases with the client. Kovair used its data migration and synchronization solution – Kovair QuickSync for migrating the data. QuickSync tool was installed in a server at the client’s organization. Before initiating the configuration of QuickSync, Kovair analysed the existing data structure of Microfocus ALM Projects and took a confirmation from the client on the field and artefact mapping. After this, the configuration consisting of mapping the Projects, Artifacts, and Fields between Microfocus ALM and Azure DevOps was done on a project by project basis. The entire configuration was achieved through simple mouse clicks without the need for any coding. As there were altogether 20 projects to be migrated, the client preferred to go in the route of sequential migration. Every project went through the sequential phases of configuration of field and artefact mapping, data migration and data validation post migration. Initially, the customer performed POC with a small project in their staging environment and once they were satisfied with the POC results, migration of production data took place. The migration took care of the most complex challenge – the contrasting data structure in the following ways:
  • The Microfocus ALM Defects were migrated as Bugs in Azure DevOps.
  • Microfocus ALM Tests were migrated as Test Cases in Azure DevOps by maintaining the same Test Plan hierarchy.
  • Apart from the artifacts, the corresponding attachments, comments, user values, parent-child relations and the relationship links across all the artifacts were migrated.
  • Kovair was able to overcome the challenge of migrating the data in a way that was not supported as per the ADO workflow.
  • Upon completion of the migration, Kovair also synchronized all the records that got inserted on Microfocus ALM during the time of migration to ADO
Kovair QuickSync also facilitated users to have real-time monitoring of the migration. The volume of successful and failed transactions could be monitored from one single window. In case of failed migration, detail level logs were maintained which provided root cause for each of the individual failures. This detailed level of information helped to identify the root cause behind most of the failures. These records were then re-migrated after the problems were fixed. The entire migration happened for 60000 records with a <.01% error.
Data Hierarchy between Microfocus ALM and Azure DevOps
Fig: Data Hierarchy between Microfocus ALM and Azure DevOps

Kovair QuickSync Business Values

  • Easy tool installation and quick initial setup.
  • Codeless configuration for mapping the Microfocus ALM Projects, Entities and Fields to the Azure DevOps counterparts.
  • Successfully migrated 20 projects including Requirements, Tests and Defects to Azure DevOps.
  • Easy monitoring capabilities having an objective and subjective statistical view of the state of migration with reports and logs.
  • Retry mechanism for any unsuccessful migration.
  • Turnkey solution based upon the transaction volume of data across all configurations and projects for any number of users.
  • 100% migration with <0.1% failure.

Conclusion

Kovair QuickSync allowed Synovus to overcome all challenges of data migration and move from Microfocus ALM 12.53 to Azure DevOps within 4 weeks in an incremental manner. The complete data got successfully moved from Microfocus to Azure DevOps by maintaining the hierarchy, relationships and attachments of the record across all the artifacts.
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Integration of ServiceNow & Azure DevOps for a Major Global Bank

 

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In the current DevOps ecosystem, the choice of platform and collaboration between cross-functional teams is critical for an organization. Response to Incidence and Change management is the key to DevOps collaboration. ServiceNow is a market leader for IT service management and Azure DevOps is being adopted by more and more enterprises. For those reasons, this case study for Kovair’s work for a major global bank adoption is a good example for other enterprises contemplating to follow in their path.

Unique Integration Implementation

Kovair Team along with the Bank implemented some of the unique as well as very complicated scenarios through Omnibus. These kinds of implementations are utmost challenging and could only be achieved through a rich and robust ESB platform like Kovair Omnibus. The platform needs to support both Correlation and Aggregation data patterns. Some of the Unique complicated scenarios are as follows
  • Populate Change request in ServiceNow based on Azure DevOps Work Item or Pipeline generation
  • Email sent activities in ServiceNow Item are synched into Discussions in Azure DevOps work item. The email content can be with header and content as Click link
  • Activating potential scheduling conflicts for a change request based on the configuration items (CIs), “planned start date”, and “planned end date” in scope for the change.
  • Syncing composite data – Change Request and the Link(s) attached (User Story, Task, Issue) from Azure DevOps Work Item to ServiceNow Change Request
Data is extremely valuable for an Organization like Bank, then extracting that data, interpreting it and orchestrating between two diverse system is of utmost challenge! This implementation at this global bank is far beyond normal data integration done through normal ESB platform.

Business Value

The ServiceNow Change management integration with Azure DevOps will help the Bank to delegate appropriate changes to the IT environment effectively and much faster than before. Moreover, this ecosystem will also ensure that all day to day scheduling conflicts for a change request based on the configuration items (CIs) are mitigated through automation. The tracking and honoring the Change management workflow helps the bank to bring the changes in the end system effectively which otherwise may have experienced delays before their work can be deployed to production. Kovair Omnibus platform helps to achieve these end-to-end relationships cutting across the tools. It also provides complete data for management reporting highlighting all the insights – that will help development and operations work more closely together as part of their journey to DevOps.

Ecosystems and the bridge between them

ServiceNow solution for Change Management helps an organization to understand the risk and work on it to minimize risks of changes to the IT environment. Overall, it is the process responsible for managing all changes to the production operations environment from inception to completion. These days, Change Management is viewed as an essential organizational process. Azure DevOps is a platform for Development and Collaboration. It helps to connect different products, projects and teams associated with product development from testing to deployment. Typically, the internal teams manage User Stories at the early stages of development and Change request for the live production system in Azure DevOps. Managing Integration between two ecosystems, where at each end there are complex workflows, rules and data is a big challenge. It requires a very deep level data integration where data flow across tools will create virtual workflow across the tool to achieve the business goals. Kovair team worked with the bank for a few weeks and have achieved an optimum integrated system using Kovair Omnibus. The integrated system manages ServiceNow workflow, conflicts scheduling detection and configuration items resolution completely from Azure DevOps.
Ecosystems and the bridge

Complex Business Cases

Managing ServiceNow Template based on Azure DevOps CR TypesManaging ServiceNow Template based on Azure DevOps CR TypesBoth the systems – Azure DevOps and ServiceNow are deeply integrated, and as a result dynamic Change Request types are mapped with ServiceNow Change Management templates like Standard, Emergency and Normal. Moreover, Change Request when synced with ServiceNow as a Change Request – the additional fields that are populated as part of the dynamic template are synced back to Azure DevOps so that the internal team understands the Change Request type in ServiceNow and its related priority data. Kovair Omnibus provides complete support for sync back for any number of rich data to the source data smoothly.

Data Sync with Traceable Link Data Sync with Traceable Link Change Request from Azure DevOps Sync to ServiceNow contains all the related User Stories and Task to ServiceNow in tabular structure to provide 100% visibility to the ServiceNow user and help them understand the impact of a Change Request which has been synced to ServiceNow. Syncing rich traceable data needs a rich platform to implement the complex traceable data.

Detecting Conflict and Mitigation through automationDetecting Conflict and Mitigation through automationConflict detection in ServiceNow identifies potential scheduling conflicts for a change request based on the configuration items (CIs), “planned start date”, and “planned end date” in scope for the change. If a scheduling conflict occurs, conflict detection also checks for any related blackout or maintenance schedules and other active change requests to determine the scheduling conflict. Kovair Omnibus provides complete automation of raising conflict in ServiceNow from Azure DevOps.

Realtime Syncing of Work notes and CommentsRealtime Syncing of Work notes and CommentsServiceNow supports a rich set of end user attributes like Additional Comments, Work Notes, Email etc. as Journal attributes. ServiceNow Work notes attributes can be updated only by users with a specific role, whereas the Additional comments field can be updated by any user. This creates a separation between notes that are meant to communicate back and forth with the Azure DevOps. Kovair Omnibus supports all the different types of notes and Comments with its rich data.

Conclusion

Digital Transformation is driving many organizations to adopt deep level integration between heterogenous complex platforms to achieve organization of business flow. The bank being a very large organization adopted Kovair Omnibus based on its capabilities to gain significantly from these two systems and aligned themselves to achieve organization goal of rapid mitigation of complex changes in the production system and benefit their customers tremendously. The Bank holistically wants to ensure that changes are recorded and evaluated, and that authorized changes are planned, prioritized, verified, implemented and documented in a controlled manner.
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Veracode delivers the application security solutions and services required by today’s software-driven world. Veracode’s unified platform assesses and improves the security of applications from inception through production so that businesses can confidently innovate with the applications they build, buy and assemble as well as the components they integrate into their environments.

Kovair Veracode Adapter

Integrating Security Testing within development and the operations teams is becoming the new norm, but this migration needs newer thinking, with newer processes, methods and tools. Full Product Lifecycle Management with Risk/Hazard Assessments are needed with Security in mind.

The Kovair Omnibus Adapter for Veracode allows you to maximize the benefits of static and dynamic security testing for your application by colaborating the Security Test Result.

Features & Benefits

  • Integrate Security and Compliance Testing within CI/CD toolchain environments.
  • Scan for known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in all open-source and third-party components and multiple application scan result within one dashboard.
  • Sync static analysis report after every build and dynamic analysis repor after every deployment with Kovair Veracode Adapter.

Why Integrate Veracode with Kovair?

  • Application Monitoring – The integration between Kovair and Veracode would enable real-time security monitoring for applications.
  • In-depth visibility – Gain in-depth visibility into release pipeline and progress across all environments for all teams in a real-time manner through pre-defined reports and dashboards facilitating early detection of security flaws.
  • End-to-End Traceability – The adapter can sync Application under test, Scan and Scan Results between Veracode and the target application through Kovair Omnibus. As a result of the integration, data can be made visible to other tools that are integrated with Kovair platform.
Entities Exposed Events Collected Actions Supported
  • Application
  • Scan
  • Scan Result
  •  Application
  • Scan
  • Scan Result
  • Application
  • Scan

Use Case Scenario with Kovair Veracode

Let us consider a typical use case scenario where the Veracode tool is integrated with Kovair application using Kovair adapter for Veracode and Kovair Omnibus platform.

Kovair Veracode

  • After a build gets triggered in Jenkins, source codes will be pulled from the source control repository (eg, GitHub, GitLab).
  • Following the build, automatic deployment process will begin (for example, in Ansible) at the staging server.
  • After the deployment is completed, automated script execution will start with the help of a Test Management tool such as Selenium.
  • Finally, after deployment, Veracode Dynamic Scan is executed. The captured results are then synced to Kovair Omnibus.

Jile is an Enterprise Agile Planning & Delivery product with DevOps capabilities in a single platform to help manage the end-to-end software delivery value stream from ideation to deployment.

Kovair JILE Integration Adapter

The Kovair Omnibus Adapter for JILE provides full scope of collaboration between multiple teams. When each team has the comfort of using the tools of their choice, greater efficiency and productivity can be achieved. Kovair Omnibus JILE adapter supports bidirectional flow of data between JILE and other tools.

The integration between JILE and other Portfolio Management tools provides real-time visibility into development progress for the required top-level requirements. Moreover, product teams will be able to link all user stories, task and test cases associated with the top-level Epics. This facilitates the collaborators to see the same data in the ecosystem, irrespective of what application they use.

Features & Benefits

  • Get faster feedback at every stage of the lifecycle and take corrective action to resolve problems proactively.
  • Better management of Scrum and Kanban projects to achieve business goals.
  • Managing stories, features, iterations and defects through integrations with other ecosystem tools.
  • Improves team efficiency through better collaboration across different teams and data synchronization between different tools.

Why Integrate JILE with Kovair?

  • Managing Portfolio – The integration between Kovair and JILE would enable enterprises to manage a portfolio of projects. It helps teams define and manage high-level strategy and business goals through processes such as Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), Agile Portfolio Management and more. The working team can link work based on the high-level goals.
  • Team Collaboration – The Kovair adapter for JILE was developed understanding the fact that every software development and delivery team is different and need a customizable approach. Thus, the integration between Kovair and JILE is a flexible, generic solution that meets the needs of every team. Teams pick the high – priority user stories, drill them down into small tasks, estimating the tasks and stopping when they’ve reached the amount of work to which they can commit for that time period. Instead of planning the iteration in advance, Kanban teams define how many user stories they can work on at any given time.
Entities Exposed Events Collected Actions Supported Relations Supported
  • Story
  • Feature
  • Initiative
  • Task
  • Release
  • Iteration
  • Issue
  • WorkItem (Available in Kanban Type Work Areas)
  • Story
  • Feature
  • Initiative
  • Task
  • Release
  • Iteration
  • Issue
  • WorkItem
  • Story
  • Feature
  • Initiative
  • Task
  • Release
  • Iteration
  • Issue
  • WorkItem
  • Story to Features
  • Story to Release
  • Story to Iteration
  • Feature to Release

Use Case Example – Integration between JILE and JIRA

Kovair Omnibus JILE integration allows seamless collaboration between JILE and JIRA, and provide complete visibility to the management, across multiple projects. For example, an Epic is created in JIRA and is broken down into features. The epic along with its relationship with features will get synchronized to JILE. In JILE, an iteration, along with a story will get created against the Feature. Once the user story is finalied, the newly created user story will be assigned to the iteration. Next, the Story along with its relationship with Feature and iteration will get synced to Jira and will be related to the sprint in JIRA. Once the story is synched to JIRA, it will be assigned in JIRA by creating a Task for the story. Finally, this task of JIRA along with its relationship with the Story will again get synced to Jile.

Kovair Omnibus JILE