All case studies / Applied Systems
Applied Systems deploys 1,200 times a week with Octopus
About Applied Systems
Applied Systems is a global leader in cloud-based software solutions for the insurance industry. Operating for more than 40 years, its mission is to power insurance through innovative, cloud-based software. Over 2,500 customers across 4 regions use its products to be more efficient and extend the traditional storefront to online insurance experiences.
Challenges
Applied Systems’ manual processes didn’t allow it to scale
Before using Octopus, the team at Applied Systems ran manual deployments. With multiple environments, they needed a team member to deploy to each environment individually. As some environments had different processes, it became difficult to achieve consistency.
With this inconsistency came a high risk of error in their deployments. Manual processes and no guardrails left no way to guarantee deployments to production would get completed the same way. As a result, team members often had to be available late into the evening to handle their deployments.
At the time, Applied Systems only had 20 environments and needed to scale, but manual processes made this difficult.
Before Octopus, deployments to many environments at the same time would have been done by someone logging on to each environment separately. With Octopus, we can select multiple environments at once and deploy at the same time.
Solution
Applied Systems uses Octopus for consistent deployments at scale
Applied Systems started using Octopus in 2011 and it helped support the team as they scaled. The team’s capabilities have grown rapidly along with the business, moving from 20 to 150 environments.
The team achieved consistency by using the same deployment processes in all environments with Octopus. These processes have also provided guardrails, ensuring each deployment goes through the right stages before reaching production. At any point, the team can access key information about deployments, and easily roll back if there’s an error.
Gaining visibility with a single pane of glass also helps centralize deployments and makes it quicker to manage them at scale. This is particularly important as Applied Systems’ customers have varied needs and maintenance windows.
We have been able to reduce the number of techs that have to be on call overnight to handle all of our deployments. Octopus has allowed us to keep pace with the growth without causing team burn out.
Applied System's CI/CD pipeline
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Value
Accelerated deployments at scale
Using Octopus, Applied Systems has drastically increased its number of deployments each week. The team now deploys more frequently and provides more value to their customers sooner. Using Octopus has also helped the team scale their product offering as the business has grown. Previously, they had to push out changes manually across their environments; now, they do this with consistency and speed.
Octopus has allowed us to continue to grow with speed. Because of Octopus, we’ve been able to add many new features and reduce complexity at the same time.
Consistency and reduced risk
The Applied Systems team values the consistency Octopus has helped them implement. Their manual deployment processes across environments used to be inconsistent. This created risk, particularly without a gated system.
With Octopus, the team deploys uniformly across their environments, reducing the risk of error. They also use lifecycles to ensure people can’t deploy to production without following the correct process.
We have many different products and services, and our CI/CD processes were disparate prior to Octopus. Standardizing our deployments on Octopus has allowed us to provide a consistent experience across the organization.
Improved visibility and auditing
Before Octopus, the Applied Systems team couldn’t clearly see deployments to all environments. It was difficult to keep track of different deployments across products and customers.
With Octopus’s dashboards, the team can see their deployments and key information at a glance. If they have a problem or need more information, they can look back at deployment logs and identify issues easily. Consistent deployments help with troubleshooting, too.
Being able to see 1,200 deployments in a single pane of glass has been extremely beneficial. Centralization has made it quick and easy to manage.
Better developer experience and productivity
Octopus has improved developer experience and productivity at Applied Systems. Before Octopus, manual deployments across environments took a lot of time. The team also needed to rely on maintenance windows, like Sunday mornings or late evenings. With Octopus introducing automation and consistency, the team now focuses their efforts on more important tasks. There are also no more weekends or late nights to ensure a deployment goes ahead.
Our products are complex, and Octopus has given us the ability to simplify complex deployments for our Engineering and Operations teams. The team has embraced Octopus and is very happy with product.