Red Hat’s Container Technologies and Knowledge Were Chosen by SoftBank to Embrace DevOps
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and collaboration with Red Hat
Consulting provide foundation for improved IT efficiency and faster
application development
RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source
solutions, today announced that several of Red Hat’s open source
technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, as well as
the knowledge of Red Hat Consulting, were chosen by SoftBank Corp
(“SoftBank”), a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp., to implement DevOps
methodology for its Service Platform Division, IT Service Development
Division, Information Technology Unit, and Technology Unit, the
company’s in-house IT organization. This large, varied organization
develops, maintains and operates SoftBank’s IT systems for internal work
and operations, supporting 600 diverse systems.
DevOps entails using emerging technologies and updated IT processes to
break down the procedural and technical barriers between development and
IT operations teams. This can help lead to faster application deployment
times and the ability to more readily address end user needs, both
internally and externally. As more enterprises begin considering the
adoption of digital technologies, DevOps can become an important
inflection point.
As SoftBank’s business has grown to encompass a range of diverse
offerings and divisions at a global level, the company developed its
“Global IT Platform Strategy” concept, where its overarching systems
based in Japan can be used by its overseas divisions. Aiming to deliver
this unified platform by the end of 2018, SoftBank also sought to reduce
its IT operating costs by half and double developer productivity, all
goals that SoftBank believed would require a change in the company’s
approach to IT.
The company felt that it had hit a production limit with the existing
waterfall method of application development, especially when it came to
rolling out new services at a global level more efficiently. To better
meet its goal of delivering a global, standardized IT platform, SoftBank
began exploring DevOps methodology, which could help SoftBank’s IT
organization bring new services to bear faster without sacrificing
overall application quality.
The project started with SoftBank attending a Red Hat DevOps Discovery
Workshop, which helped the company’s IT organization gain a high-level
overview of what a successful DevOps implementation could look like and
how they could measure a project’s effectiveness. Engaging with Red Hat
Consulting, SoftBank’s IT organization ran a pilot project using the
plan laid out as part of the workshop. The project was a “Personal
Account Management (PAM)” solution, a web application intended to manage
an artificial intelligence (AI) solution for responding to customer
inquiries at SoftBank stores.
SoftBank found the pilot project to be successful, with PAM code pushes
increasing from once every two weeks to 118 times in two weeks, helping
SoftBank to better address evolving customer needs and usage patterns
with the service. Intra-organization communication also improved,
providing a clearer visualization of project workflow which helped team
members assess and engage with specific tasks before they became
bottlenecks.
As part of the DevOps implementation, Red Hat OpenShift Container
Platform was also adopted by SoftBank as its in-house development
platform. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is the first and only
hybrid cloud solution delivering enterprise-grade Kubernetes and Linux
containers, based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the world’s leading
enterprise Linux platform. SoftBank determined that OpenShift would play
an important role in not only helping to smooth the introduction of
DevOps organization-wide, but also providing a more stable foundation
for future projects.
In the wake of the successful test project, SoftBank expanded the number
of teams using DevOps from one to six and established an internal task
force, ARK Agile Labo, to promote DevOps and agile development across
the organization. Based on its early results, SoftBank reports that it
currently plans to shift 50 percent of the systems developed and
operated by the Platform Control Division to DevOps by the end of
SoftBank’s FY2018.
Supporting Quotes
Mr. Toyofumi Yamashita, general manager, Platform Development
Department, Platform Control, IT Headquarters, Technology Unit IT
Control, SoftBank Corp.
“Our successful test project and
resulting rollout of DevOps methodology has had a significant impact on
our ability to develop new systems to support SoftBank’s diverse lines
of business. While new processes and tools are often met with some
concern, our engagement with Red Hat Consulting helped us to put the
methodology into practice with the steady backing and knowledge of a
leader in the DevOps field.”
Hirokazu Mochizuki, president and representative director, Red Hat
K.K.
“SoftBank faced similar challenges to other large
enterprises when it comes to updating their methods around building and
maintaining mission-critical systems, specifically the ability to
rapidly meet emerging demands around new business opportunities. With
the support and knowledge of Red Hat Consulting as well as the adoption
of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, we believe that SoftBank is
well positioned to address digital transformation internally and build
towards their goal of delivering a broadly-supported and used platform
for their global divisions.”
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Red Hat, Inc.
John Terrill, +1-571-421-8132
jterrill@redhat.com
Source: Red Hat, Inc.