DevOps.com

  • Latest
    • Articles
    • Features
    • Most Read
    • News
    • News Releases
  • Topics
    • AI
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • Cloud
    • Culture
    • DataOps
    • DevSecOps
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • DevOps Practice
    • ROELBOB
    • DevOps Toolbox
    • IT as Code
  • Videos/Podcasts
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
    • DevOps Unbound
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • On-Demand Webinars
  • Library
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • On-Demand Events
  • Sponsored Content
  • Related Sites
    • Techstrong Group
    • Container Journal
    • Security Boulevard
    • Techstrong Research
    • DevOps Chat
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps TV
    • Techstrong TV
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
  • Media Kit
  • About
  • Sponsor
  • AI
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Continuous Testing
  • DataOps
  • DevSecOps
  • DevOps Onramp
  • Platform Engineering
  • Low-Code/No-Code
  • IT as Code
  • More
    • Application Performance Management/Monitoring
    • Culture
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • ROELBOB
Hot Topics
  • HPE to Acquire OpsRamp to Gain AIOps Platform
  • Oracle Makes Java 20 Platform Generally Available
  • How to Maximize Telemetry Data Value With Observability Pipelines
  • Awareness of Software Supply Chain Security Issues Improves
  • Why Observability is Important for Development Teams

Home » Blogs » Business of DevOps » GE Capital Releases Mobile App Twice Weekly, Automating Compliance at Velocity, Thanks to DevOps/CD/CI

GE Capital Releases Mobile App Twice Weekly, Automating Compliance at Velocity, Thanks to DevOps/CD/CI

Avatar photoBy: David Geer on June 16, 2015 2 Comments

GE Capital offers equipment leases, mobile apps, and financial products for corporate customers. GE Capital’s Matt Merchant, Global Managing Director—DevOps, spoke with DevOps.com about development initiatives and processes at the financial services giant.

Recent Posts By David Geer
  • Q&A: BDO’s Coffman on Change Management, Security and DevOps, Part 2
  • Q&A: BDO’s Coffman on Change Management, Security and DevOps, Part 1
  • Sounding the Death Knell for Agile: Not so Fast!
Avatar photo More from David Geer
Related Posts
  • GE Capital Releases Mobile App Twice Weekly, Automating Compliance at Velocity, Thanks to DevOps/CD/CI
  • Webinar: DevOps at GE Transportation
  • Webinar: DevOps at GE Transportation – The re-emergence of IT and Software Development
    Related Categories
  • Blogs
  • Business of DevOps
  • Features
Show more
Show less

According to Merchant, his team leads the charge in driving

(A) the DevOps cultural transformation throughout IT,
(B) the adoption and expansion of DevOps tooling, and
(C) the change in governing structures in order to operate at a much higher velocity while continuing to meet regulatory requirements.

That last mouthful speaks to a key pain point that GE Capital’s DevOps processes relieve: how to speed development while remaining compliant. GE Capital does it by automating security and compliance. You’ll read how shortly, but first, the mobile app.

The Mobile App for Fleet Drivers

GE Capital provides vehicle fleet leases globally for enterprises with delivery drivers, sales people, and others who travel on company business. The mobile apps that GE Capital provides as part of the leasing platform are many and vary from country to country. For this discussion, Merchant takes an app deployed in Sweden as the example.

The web-based app enables drivers to locate nearby gas stations, tire shops, repair shops, and windshield replacement services. Drivers also use the app to download routes, to collect refueling, mileage, and oil change / service data, and to log their hours. The app creates a number of efficiencies.

Drivers used to get shop data from a physical driver’s manual that they had to pore through to find the closest service provider. “The instant you hand them that catalog it’s out of date. Now they get real-time updates on their phones,” says Merchant. They also used to hand log their hours with pad and pen and then return to the office at day’s end to type this data into a computer. “Now they do it in real-time, and are done at the end of the day,” says Merchant.

Mobile App Development Before & After DevOps

In GE Capital’s old Waterfall mobile app development process, releases took six to eight weeks. Challenges included an inconsistent code repository, manual scripting and testing, and sitting before change, architectural, and security review boards every time developers evolved the code. “Because all that is so painful, you don’t want to repeat the process very often, and so you bundle more changes into a single release, which increases the risk of error,” says Merchant.

With DevOps, GE Capital added Chef configuration management and created an “over-arching umbrella” development process that the company calls ArchOps. ArchOps covers CD/CI and virtualized cloud platform management while leveraging a Lean Six Sigma approach to swift Agile application development, explains Merchant. This enables fast iterations, consistent code, automated testing and, using Chef, fast VM spin-ups. And there are no more change management reviews.

Achieving “Compliance at Velocity”

To achieve what Chef calls “Compliance at Velocity” and deliver compliant, auditable code at a high speed, GE Capital reconsidered its toll gate processes and artifacts. “We applied a value stream map to our governance model, removing 60-percent of our toll gates and 70-percent of our artifacts,” says Merchant. This shrunk mobile app release delivery to days.

GE Capital automated compliance by automating test output analysis. When the analysis shows that a portion of the code failed a test, the code goes back to development, which must fix it before retesting, further analysis, and eventual promotion to production. “That removed the need for a change advisory board,” says Merchant.

And when an auditor requests test results, release dates, or copies of specific code releases, Merchant simply pulls the given code and all the test results, design artifacts, and governance data that are bundled with it from the Git repository and hands it over.

Once Through Development, Please

Now with a DevOps mindset in command at GE Capital, all developers use the Eclipse IDE, which transfers the code directly into the company’s Git repository. Once the code enters Git, developers can run jobs using tools such as Jenkins, do Fortify application scanning, and perform UI testing using GE Capital’s home grown tool called Rainbow.

Once the code passes all tests, the system sends it into a pre-production staging environment. “GE Capital built the staging environment using Chef, which calls out to servers, spins up the environment, and places the code inside it,” says Merchant. User acceptance and remaining tests happen there. Then the Chef code that created the internal environment creates the production environment, ensuring application stability upon release.

Filed Under: Blogs, Business of DevOps, Features

« 2015 State of the Software Supply Chain Report
Continuous Delivery and The Proof of Quality Assurance »

Techstrong TV – Live

Click full-screen to enable volume control
Watch latest episodes and shows

Upcoming Webinars

The Testing Diaries: Confessions of an Application Tester
Wednesday, March 22, 2023 - 11:00 am EDT
The Importance of Adopting Modern AppSec Practices
Wednesday, March 22, 2023 - 1:00 pm EDT
Cache Reserve: Eliminating the Creeping Costs of Egress Fees
Thursday, March 23, 2023 - 1:00 pm EDT

Sponsored Content

The Google Cloud DevOps Awards: Apply Now!

January 10, 2023 | Brenna Washington

Codenotary Extends Dynamic SBOM Reach to Serverless Computing Platforms

December 9, 2022 | Mike Vizard

Why a Low-Code Platform Should Have Pro-Code Capabilities

March 24, 2021 | Andrew Manby

AWS Well-Architected Framework Elevates Agility

December 17, 2020 | JT Giri

Practical Approaches to Long-Term Cloud-Native Security

December 5, 2019 | Chris Tozzi

Latest from DevOps.com

HPE to Acquire OpsRamp to Gain AIOps Platform
March 21, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Oracle Makes Java 20 Platform Generally Available
March 21, 2023 | Mike Vizard
How to Maximize Telemetry Data Value With Observability Pipelines
March 21, 2023 | Tucker Callaway
Awareness of Software Supply Chain Security Issues Improves
March 21, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Why Observability is Important for Development Teams
March 21, 2023 | John Bristowe

TSTV Podcast

On-Demand Webinars

DevOps.com Webinar ReplaysDevOps.com Webinar Replays

GET THE TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK

Most Read on DevOps.com

Large Organizations Are Embracing AIOps
March 16, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Modern DevOps is a Chance to Make Security Part of the Process
March 15, 2023 | Don Macvittie
Addressing Software Supply Chain Security
March 15, 2023 | Tomislav Pericin
What NetOps Teams Should Know Before Starting Automation Journeys
March 16, 2023 | Yousuf Khan
DevOps Adoption in Salesforce Environments is Advancing
March 16, 2023 | Mike Vizard
  • Home
  • About DevOps.com
  • Meet our Authors
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Techstrong Group, Inc.

© 2023 ·Techstrong Group, Inc.All rights reserved.