Introduction
This case study of Verizon Communication is based on an April 2017 survey of Rev-Trac customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service.
Rev-Trac Case Study
This case study of Verizon Communication is based on an April 2017 survey of Rev-Trac customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service.
“Rev-Trac has greatly simplified our change management process. It’s helped us stabilize both our QA and our Production environments and place ‘many cars on the freeway’ for functional delivery.”
Verizon is much more than a wireless communications company. Number 30 on the global Fortune 500 list, Verizon Communications has combined the recent acquisition of Yahoo with its existing AOL business to create a new subsidiary. Newly created Oath is a diverse house of more than 50 media and technology brands that engages more than a billion people around the world.
The communications company’s continuous growth through acquisitions, such as AOL and Yahoo, secures it a place at the forefront of the increasingly popular Internet of Things (IoT) evolution. The leadership believe the combined set of assets across Verizon and Oath – from VR to AI, 5G to IoT and content partnerships to originals – will create exciting new ways to captivate audiences across the globe.
Accelerate business transformation
For Verizon, the goal is continuous audience growth. To help achieve the scale it desired, the communications company wanted to streamline its SAP environment, simplifying change control processes and improving production stability. At the time, Verizon also had a project underway to adopt agile and DevOps principals for SAP change management.
Rev-Trac — a SAP DevOps platform — had been on Verizon’s radar for few years, and it had also evaluated SAP’s Solution Manager ChaRM. The Verizon IT team realized Revolution Software Concepts’ (RSC) Rev-Trac most closely aligned with achieving its SAP DevOps goals.
Automation was key to Verizon achieving its SAP agile and DevOps initiatives. To realize their goals the company used Rev-Trac for workflow automation, conflict management through extended locking and the software’s Overtake and Overwrite Protection (OOPS) function. The IT team also utilized Rev-Trac’s Release Management Workbench to support their agile/DevOps ambitions.
Rev-Trac can be installed and configured in no time at all. With the help of RSC Consulting, Verizon’s IT team was able to get the system installed and production capable within a two-week engagement window. It only took one to two hours to train staff in the proper use of Rev-Trac.
Fast track to continuous delivery
Since implementing and deploying Rev-Trac, Verizon has achieved its initial project goals. The company has established a multi-track, continuous delivery approach through Rev-Trac’s Release Management Workbench.
Utilizing Rev-Trac has enabled Verizon to significantly accelerate change through key areas including Workflow approval, Transport deployment, Object conflict management, Transport sequencing and BAU/support track retrofit.
Rodney Schmisseur, Senior IT Manager, Verizon Communications said Rev-Trac basically drove its SAP change management process. It completely automated our transport management tasks which were labor intensive and demanding schedule-wise.
“It has both streamlined and automated our change management operations so that now, we are doing significantly more work with considerably less effort,” Mr Schmisseur said.
Simplifying the SAP change control process – via automation – has reduced manual effort by more than 70%. In some cases, manual intervention in the SAP change process has seen reductions of up to 90%.
Additionally, the management of SAP changes running through N+1 landscapes was simplified by up to 60%. Importantly, Verizon has seen a 51 – 75% reduction in production incidents.
This data was sourced directly from verified users of Rev-Trac by TechValidate.
TechValidate verifies the identity and organizational affiliation of all participants that contribute to published research data. When research participants so desire, we also guarantee their anonymity so that they may share information honestly and freely.