Operations

Data Center Migration

Challenge

The team has been assigned to move a running, fielded application. The documentation may be incomplete or out of date, the “rock stars” that got the application initially have moved on to the next crisis and taken their knowledge with them. Furthermore, the current team has to collect all performance and security data to validate a successful migration.

Solution

The result is essentially a mini-development effort where the team has to reproduce the existing system in the new environment. This will require a lot of trial and error as the team iterates through the install and configuration of the new site. CONS3RT allows the team to constantly retry to rapidly narrow down the gaps. The access to tools for test and validation means that checks can be made real time rather than at the end.

Customer Support

Challenge

A customer is reporting an issue in the field and it needs to be reproduced in order to identify the fix. Support does not have all versions or configurations pre-installed in their lab. The delay to help the customers is frustrating on both sides. This is a more challenging issue if the customer is on an older version.

Solution

As products progress thru the development/test/production lifecycle, those system designs are already in the CONS3RT library. Support has immediate access to versions shipped and fielded, reducing the time to reproduce. And when they get a fix from engineering, the resource are available to validate, test drive the install, etc.

Advanced Elasticity

Challenge

As end user load increase, more servers must be fielded. Sometime, this is only a temporary spike. Manually adding, building and configuring systems is both risky and time consuming.

Solution

Tie the performance monitoring tools to CONS3RT via the ReST API. When thresholds are crossed, commission additional system(s) via CONS3RT from the library. When no longer needed, release them and the resources.

User Training

Challenge

Training classes are limited by the number of system in the classroom. After each training class all the system need to be rebuilt to get back to the same starting baseline. This is also true when a new version is released or if the classroom has to support multiple products.

Solution

By deploying in the cloud space, there is much more capacity elasticity. And resource are only consumed when systems are deployed. Updating a system design takes minutes and multiple designs can be saved in the library to cover different products or versions.