In recent years, many companies have reimagined their technology organization models in order to release software more rapidly and reliably. As such, DevOps has become the answer for businesses searching for competitive advantage and increased customer satisfaction, including financial institutions ranging from small trading firms to large industry players such as global banks and exchanges. The race to gain market share through enhanced customer experiences is on as software applications and content must be delivered more quickly than ever. The effects of the pandemic have further exacerbated this need in recent months as customers continue to drive digital transformations at an accelerated pace. The good news for financial services institutions - according to a Redgate survey - is that 77% have already adopted DevOps across at least some projects, or have a pilot program in place, which ranks first across industry verticals, excluding software. On a broader scale, according to IDC, the DevOps software market is expected to grow at a 17% CAGR between 2017 and 2022, further illustrating continued strong adoption. The DevOps model has quickly become an imperative and financial institutions are generally well positioned to meet market demands – but success is by no means guaranteed and there are a number of challenges to be addressed.
Bringing skills together
The term DevOps is a combination of “development” and “operations” and means bringing together within the same team people and skills that are traditionally in distinct hierarchies. DevOps practices have become ubiquitous among Agile organizations and the concept is sometimes dubbed “Agile on steroids,” with the primary goal being to streamline the assembly of software from conception to release. By including infrastructure support team members from operations to the standard Agile team composed of software designers, testers and developers, DevOps represents “a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of Agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach,” according to Gartner.
Increasing quality with continuous testing
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of DevOps is that it is able to leverage continuous testing, a process where testing activities are performed as early and as late as possible in the software development lifecycle, with the goal of increasing quality, shortening test cycles and lessening the possibility of defects. For example, shortly after software engineers check in new code, a fresh build is automatically created and unit tested, thus revealing potential regressions as promptly as possible. DevOps practices also invite more testing opportunities during release and deployment. In the context of large web applications for instance, a “canary” release can be deployed on a single application server for which user and system behavior is closely monitored and analyzed to identify any possible defects.
Figure 1: The continuous DevOps cycle
Enabling automation and tooling
A meaningful DevOps strategy requires automation. While not all DevOps activities can be automated, productivity and speed can be greatly improved with testing automation. The best candidates for automation are regression tests, provided they are executed when code changes are merged and integrated into the main code branch. In situations where automation is not practical, an approach such as pair testing can help. In short, pair testing is when two programmers are brought together at one workstation where one performs testing while the other analyzes and reviews test results.
Adopting and mastering the right tooling is also an integral part of a robust DevOps strategy. A plethora of DevOps tools have emerged on the market across the last several years and are now becoming more common in many large financial institutions. These tools facilitate code management, testing and release management automation, help manage complex testing and production environments, and keep engineers in control of release execution.
DevOps adoption in the financial services industry – what’s working and what’s not
Financial services firms are relatively advanced in DevOps adoption and this success can largely be attributed to business and cultural factors. To start, finance sector IT staff, despite being siloed into various organizational stacks, tend to be collaborative and comfortable working across functional walls. Additionally, financial services software engineers typically display a full stack awareness and own their production environment where application uptime and stability are deemed critical. Lastly, teams tend to be motivated to automate their processes from code management to release. These structural and cultural attributes represent behaviors trending towards DevOps adoption and success and represent areas that the financial services industry has performed well.
With the insatiable desire to speed up software delivery and release cycles, several notable opportunities remain for financial services firms to enhance their DevOps journey:
Legacy Infrastructure: This is probably the greatest challenge for financial services institutions. They have platforms that have evolved over decades through M&A, off the shelf, and in-house development. This sprawl restricts their ability to move quickly and is further hindered by key man dependencies and staffing that lacks the skills and capabilities to create a sustainable infrastructure.
Tooling Adoption: There has been significant innovation in the DevOps tools space and firms are rightfully cautious in their uptake of new technology. Strict regulations, security and audit requirements tend to hold them back but the innovation has matured and there are certainly opportunities to capture speed, efficiency and quality gains. Financial services firms must now accelerate acceptance and improve maturity to capture the innovation that has occurred in the last several years.
Organizational Structure: The right culture and organizational structure can give DevOps the best opportunity to succeed. While financial firms are heavily siloed, the right organizational structure changes and cross-functional teams must constantly be assessed in order to drive change.
Financial services institutions have their own challenges, but also their own unique opportunities. While they have the most work to do in legacy Infrastructure, tooling, and organizational alignment, they remain well positioned to mature their DevOps capabilities and deliver high quality software early and often.
About Monticello
Monticello Consulting Group is a management consulting firm supporting the financial services industry through deep knowledge and expertise in digital transformation, change management, and financial services advisory. Our understanding of the competitive forces reshaping business models in capital markets, lending, payments, and digital banking are proven enablers that help our clients remain in compliance with regulations, innovate to be more competitive, and gain market share in new and existing businesses. By leveraging our change management and technology delivery capabilities, Monticello guides its clients in the deployment of the latest digital technologies with confidence and resilience.
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