What is Continuous Maintenance?

Do you have business applications that are sat on aging software and hardware technology stacks?  Are you hamstrung when it comes to upgrading an application or it’s underlying technology stack for fear of breaking it and the potential revenue and political ramifications that might follow?  Do you have the man power and time to manage such upgrades on a regular basis without impacting other business development projects?

Continuous Maintenance is a methodology drawing upon current industry thinking and underpinned by proven industry technologies.  It is DSP’s solution to keeping both your current and legacy systems up to date…all the time…and all at a low risk to your business.  It provides a path to releasing your staff to build new business value instead of worrying about existing and legacy environment maintenance.

Patch Automation

Understanding what changes are available to your application and technology stack is the starting point for Continuous Maintenance. By querying and analysing patch availability from different software vendors and comparing this data to your current installed estate, DSP can determine what needs to be done. This work can then be scheduled.

DSP will provide you with a complete inventory of installed software and current versions, highlighting where there are patching opportunities. We can also detect where unauthorised changes have been made to an environment.

Related Technologies
Microsoft Systems Center, Microsoft PowerShell
DSP’s Patching Factory, Shell scripting

Change Automation

Knowing what needs to be patched, we can now automate the standup of test environments on an as needed basis to satisfy any testing requirement. This can be achieved on premise or inside any of the major Cloud providers.
And with test server available, the patch can now be downloaded and automatically applied to the desired environment, be that a non-production or production.

DSP will craft automated builds for each of the environments inside our Continuous Maintenance service. This will allow for automated builds of new environments as well as automated patching of these environments. These will be maintained under our managed services.

Related Technologies
Microsoft System Center, Microsoft PowerShell DSC, Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Cobbler, Packer, Docker

Test Automation

It is test automation that provides confidence that a patch or a change has not broken an application. Through appropriate testing, system changes can be embraced and not seen as a risk.

Applications come in all shapes and sizes and require different levels of testing. The criticality of an application usually the drives the volume of testing required.
DSP will work with you to define the best testing strategies for each application and then build corresponding test automation. This can all be delivered inside a managed service.

Related Technologies
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Selenium