Live from DevOps World | Jenkins World 2019, Annie Michelia, database architect at Broadridge, sat down with DevOps Radio to discuss the implementation of DevOps in the financial sector. Annie explains that by trade, she’s an Oracle DBA, having worked as a database administrator for most of her professional career. Currently, she works as an architect at Broadridge - the leading provider of investor communications, technology-driven solutions and data and analytics to the financial services industry, focusing on on-premise database technologies, as well as AWS Cloud technologies, while playing a major role in cloud initiative projects for lift and shifts.
Annie kicks off the episode by discussing the recent DevOps transformation at Broadridge. She says Broadridge has been using DevOps practices for more than five years now to do all necessary application deployments and infrastructure deployments seamlessly. Since Broadridge is a financial solutions company, criticality plays a crucial role in its deployment strategy. So, when they started initiatives for the cloud, the management decision was that everything has to flow through automation - no manual deploys, no manual installs. This started an initiative for the cloud piece as part of their DevOps strategy.
Annie goes on to explain Broadridge’s decision to move to the cloud. While cost and speed played a large part, but technology was also key. They wanted to evolve with the time and use the latest technologies, so when they moved to the cloud, they also decided that they wanted to create an environment that was zero-touch. She then shares that to help get everyone aligned on their DevOps model, they have weekly practice conferences where they educate employees and customers on how to understand the existing model. In every COP and COE meeting Broadridge hosts, they invite the DevOps team as guest speakers to tell them how any team can get into this process, whether they be an employee or a customer. Annie says that after each meeting, they will always get a handful of emails inquiring more about getting on board with the process.
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