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Success story · Application modernization & DevOps
Colombia's second-largest pension and severance fund administrator brings its IBM i core into DevOps
Redsis implemented ARCAD for DevOps and DROPS to build an end-to-end pipeline, from application audit to production deployment, for the severance and mandatory pension core, integrated with the open-source tools the company already used on its other platforms.
Client
Colombia's #2 private pension fund administrator by members
Industry
Pensions and severance funds
Location
Medellín, Colombia
Solution
ARCAD for DevOps · DROPS
Service line
Application modernization
The client
The client is one of the two pension and severance fund administrators (known in Colombia as AFPs) that together hold the vast majority of members in the country's private pension system; roughly three in ten members are with this firm. Headquartered in Medellín with about 2,000 employees, it manages mandatory pension, severance (cesantías) and voluntary pension funds.
Its most critical applications, those for severance and mandatory pensions, are built on IBM i. That platform manages the savings of millions of members, so every software change has to reach production quickly, but above all under control.
The challenge
The company had already adopted DevOps as its modernization and agility strategy for software projects on other platforms. It had not done so for its core business, given the complexity and expertise required to automate the development, testing and production cycle on IBM i with enterprise-grade tooling.
- Manual deployments: promoting core changes to production relied on manual, traditional tasks that were hard to automate.
- Two speeds: web, mobile and cloud platforms had pipelines; the IBM i core did not.
- Tools that fall short: the open-source tools common in DevOps aren't effective on IBM i by themselves without a layer that handles platform integration.
- Standardization: the goal was a single DevOps standard across Windows, Linux, Unix and IBM i.
Before and after
Before
A core without DevOps
Severance and pension applications on IBM i with manual deployments, outside the DevOps strategy used across the rest of the company.
Today
End-to-end ARCAD pipeline
Agile, continuous and controlled deployment on IBM i, integrated with open source under a single cross-platform standard.
The solution
ARCAD for DevOps is a modular suite built to bring DevOps practices to IBM i. It lets teams manage native IBM i source code (RPG, COBOL and more) with standard tools such as Git, automate builds based on dependency analysis, integrate testing and connect to orchestrators such as Jenkins or Azure DevOps. Its DROPS module handles release orchestration and continuous deployment, with rollback.
The Redsis solution covered building an initial pipeline with the core components, from application audit through production deployment, and included:
- Annual subscription licensing for ARCAD for DevOps and DROPS for continuous deployment.
- Implementation services with second-level support from the vendor.
- Hands-on guidance through configuration and initial operation of the solution.
- Managed administration of the DevOps for IBM i platform for one year.
A phased methodology
The project followed a cycle of discovery (assess the current context and define implementation options), implementation (configure workflows validated on the target environment), launch (test and validate), training for development and operations teams, and transition to production backed by a support team.
Before adoption, a proof of concept in a sandbox environment let the company see for itself how ARCAD integrates open-source tools with its IBM i environment.
Results
CI/CD on IBM i
Agile, continuous and controlled deployment of the core, with no manual tasks.
Cross-platform
A single DevOps standard for Windows, Linux, Unix and IBM i.
Proven in a PoC
Tested in a sandbox environment before adoption, so the decision was based on evidence.
- ARCAD for DevOps license
- DROPS: continuous deployment
- Second-level support
- 1-year managed administration
Why Redsis
Trust was earned by understanding the business context and the real challenges of developing software on IBM i, and by explaining the benefits of ARCAD for DevOps in plain terms. Redsis brings more than 25 years on mission-critical platforms in Latin America, backed by ARCAD, a vendor with more than 25 years of experience across multiple platforms and especially IBM i, to modernize the core without putting operations at risk.
Is your IBM i core still outside DevOps?
Let's talk about bringing your IBM i applications into a continuous integration and deployment pipeline, on the same standard as the rest of your organization.