In the fast-paced world of integration, efficiency and adaptability are key to delivering quality results for the customers. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how Deloitte’s DevOps experts streamline customer integration. This article will show you the day-to-day strategies that make complex tech solutions look simple – a must-read for those who want to excel in the ever-evolving world of digital integration. This article provides insight into a day in the life of a DevOps integration consultant on the Digital Customer Integration team at Deloitte. From morning routine checks to incident responses, the article outlines the multitude of tasks that make up the consultant’s day. Join us as we take a deep dive into the world of DevOps at Deloitte, providing a glimpse into the meticulous organization, coordination, and collaboration that makes this team tick.
Morning Routine and Daily Stand-Up
Morning routines and stand-up calls for DevOps teams play a pivotal role in fostering communication, collaboration, and a shared understanding of the day’s priorities, especially when it comes to incident management. A day in the life of a DevOps integration consultant starts with checking email and Microsoft Teams chat for any urgent notifications or issues that might have arisen overnight. On days when they are part of the on-call roster, additional checks are done for alerts in the email notification. Working with multiple clients, the alerts may vary from incident tickets to application performance warnings and everything in between.
At 09:00 sharp every business day, the team starts the Daily Stand-Up meeting. Some of the topics discussed with all the members include:
- What activities were done the day before?
- Today’s activities
- Progress and updates of ongoing projects and recent incidents
This provides an opportunity to align with the team and set the expectations for the day.
Daily Health Check
With the morning meeting behind, the team continues with the Daily Health Check for clients who opt for the Proactive Package, where extra monitoring and alerting services are provided based on the client’s requirements. Daily checks are performed to assess the health of their integration platform. Check-ups for error logging on new and unidentified errors in the client’s dedicated application dashboard, along with alerting, provide a complete overview of how the platform is performing and notify the clients with the health check status. The health of the APIs is also checked using Anypoint Monitoring to monitor the performances of the application workers.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
Once the daily health check is completed, the team prioritizes the tickets assigned to them. Working with the CI/CD practice, external tools are leveraged to ensure smooth delivery for clients. For a change ticket with a high priority that needs to be released as a hotfix, the process will look as follows:
- Working on Anypoint Studio tool to make necessary changes in the code.
- Pushing the changes made locally to the main branch in the designated cloud-based repository after peer review.
- Wait for the changes to be approved by the customer before using the pipeline to trigger automatic deployments to the production environment.
This collaborative approach enables seamless integration of contributions from multiple developers, fostering strong teamwork. This process can also be monitored through the Anypoint Runtime Manager, where detailed information about the applications in the clients’ environments is available.
Incident Response
P1 (Priority 1) incidents can arise at any time, for example when one of the clients’ production applications is experiencing connection issues. The team initiate the incident response protocol, which starts with a ticket creation in Jira which can either be created by the operators or the customer. In the tickets, details regarding the incidents are explained and further communications between both parties are done. This ensures that the clients are kept up to date with every progress, identifying the root cause, escalating when necessary, and implementing a solution.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
In the DevOps world, knowledge sharing is crucial. The team schedules a knowledge-sharing session, discussing best practices, troubleshooting guidelines, the latest industry trends, and sharing tips and tricks learned along the way.
Wrap-up and Planning
Towards the end of the day, tickets are updated with their latest status and preparation for the next day’s task is also done. This is not where we really wrap-up for customers with critical business processes, any incident may arise any moment. This is where we provide AMS services to our customers.
AMS 24/7 Extended Support Window
As part of the new AMS (Application Managed Services) framework, 24/7 support is now offered for one of our clients. To achieve this, the team is structured into shifts, ensuring there’s always someone available to handle any issue. An issue may pop up in the customer environment throughout the day that needs immediate attention from the team. For instance, when the production environment is down, and applications are not running which can impact the flow of the business. Our team has set up a process where when an alert appears outside office hours, a phone call is made to alert the on-call team member. The person on-call aims to respond and resolve these issues within a set timeframe, ensuring minimal disruption for the client. To assist in this process, we leverage advanced monitoring and alerting tools. Documentation and a 24/7 playbook are created to ensure that the team follows the correct procedure when an alert comes in and a seamless support is provided to the customers.
Conclusion
Dive into the energetic and varied world of a DevOps integration consultant, where efficiency meets creativity, and each obstacle presents a chance for development. The team is built on flexibility, teamwork, and forward-thinking to navigate the complexities of digital integration. With vigilant management of system incidents, thoughtful ticket prioritization, and a commitment to distinction, our consultants lay the groundwork for smooth integration victories. If you’re keen to delve deeper into the processes that drive the success of Deloitte’s Digital Customer Integration team and are looking to collaborate, please feel welcome to reach out using the contact information provided below. Your next adventure awaits!
Get in Touch
Leveraging our DevOps and operational expertise, we stand ready to assist in transforming your incident management and resolution into a more agile and seamless operation. With our proactive approach to ticket management and resolution, we enable faster turnaround times and minimize disruptions. Our sophisticated monitoring systems are designed to anticipate and mitigate issues before they impact your workflow, ensuring continuous operational excellence.
Senior Manager
Digital Customer Integration