BlakYaks work with customers to develop long-term DevOps, automation and self-service strategies. We help our clients to build and manage their Azure platforms with code, addressing common challenges and reducing operational complexity (and toolsets).

Key challenge

One of the most pressing issues revolves around the lack of cloud and DevOps talent within both the market and in-house technical teams. Coupled with constraints on capacity and time, organisations find themselves struggling to effectively build and manage cloud native and containerised platforms.

This shortage of expertise not only hampers progress but also slows down the implementation of cloud based initiatives, underscoring the critical need for strategic solutions.

Customer objectives

When assessing their DevOps & IaC maturity, customers come to us with different goals:

• DevOps maturity: Develop a clear understanding of the current level of DevOps maturity and identify areas where further investment and focus are required to maximise the benefits of this way of working.

• IaC Best practices: Automate resource provisioning to eliminate human error, improve security posture, reduce time to production and lower operating costs.

• Accelerated DevOps strategy: Increase cloud / cloud native adoption across the business, reduce time to market for new services and maximise ROI.

Our solution:
DevOps & IaC Maturity Assessment

We help clients to fill capability and experience gaps to accelerate Cloud and DevOps strategies bringing IP (e.g. designs, patterns, frameworks) to speed up deployments. With this engagement, customers will get a foundational view of their Azure DevOps and IaC maturity highlighting business problems, objectives and drivers.

At the end of the engagement, the customer will get a remediation report designed to move them towards more effective use of Azure DevOps (and Terraform) for both infrastructure and application deployments (as part of their CICD process), coupled with a roadmap to allow them to develop & scale these capabilities.

ASSESSMENT key highlights:

Rapid
Assessment

In-depth Azure DevOps and IaC landscape assessment to identify key gaps and optimisations needed, delivered in a gap analysis report with priorities defined.

Recommendations Report

Our report covers key improvements that pertain to the organisational structure, capabilities and any gaps that should be addressed as a matter of priority.

Implementation
Plan

Detailed plan and costings for a subsequent implementation phase to execute prioritised recommendations.

Our approach

Below is our approach when conducting a DevOps & IaC Maturity assessment:

1. QUICK ASSESSMENT

• Rapidly assess current Azure DevOps and IaC landscape

• Stakeholder interview and compare approach to industry good practices and BlakYaks’ own established patterns and methods

• Identify key gaps and optimisations needed in the Terraform architecture, DevOps practices and strategy

• Findings will be documented in a RAG report

2. DESIGN ENHANCEMENTS AND PLAN

• Facilitate workshops on Azure DevOps CICD strategy and modular Terraform architecture

• Agree key design change and create plan for key design enhancements

• Establish backlog, timings  and activities and agree with stakeholders

• Provide outline timings and budgets for any agreed next steps for full implementation

Assessment scope

The assessment scope will include (but not limited to) the following areas as standard:

1. Azure DevOps service

2. Pipeline integration

3. IaC code base, maturity, controls, policies and governance

4. CICD governance & policies

5. Code repository management

6. Security - Access, Deployment, Service Principles (automation accounts)

7. Structure of the code base (modules, policies, trunk, branches)

8. The culture and how that affects approach

9. Deep dive – functional performance / rather than infrastructure  

10. Existing skills and capabilities and any gaps that should be addressed

11. Review of Standard Operating Procedures

Our recommendation areas

Our assessment report will focus on a number of key areas:

• Design: Customised design built with our reusable patterns

• Infrastructure as Code: High quality, modular Terraform IaC

• Bootstrap: Robust Azure and Azure DevOps bootstrapping to ensure best practice

• Testing: IaC and application CI testing done right

• Pipelines: High quality, modular Azure DevOps pipelines

• Observe: Healthy feedback loops for visibility and response

Business benefits

BlakYaks DevOps & IaC best practice help our clients to realise the following benefits:

• Establish mature DevSecOps processes and tools

• Modular Pipeline design with tools such as Azure DevOps

• Modular IaC design with tools such as Terraform

• Robust testing to identify vulnerabilities in code and infrastructure

• Design and codify delivery processes

• Expert guidance on integrating security into the development process

• Adhere to industry regulations and standards

• Foster collaboration between teams

Get the Yaks in

If you are looking to adopt cloud native services, seeking a DevOps & IaC review, or determining the most suitable tools for your organisation, get in touch today. 

Contact us now or book a meeting

Read more about our approach to DevSecOps.