Continuous Delivery

Software releases as if from a conveyor belt

Executive summary

Insurers’ IT systems are becoming increasingly complex. It is extremely costly to implement new requirements, yet continuous delivery and continuous integration can simplify the process enormously.

Introduction

Digitisation and the challenges that come with it are putting pressure on the insurance industry. New providers are bursting into the financial and insurance markets with innovative services. New products and services have to be developed and marketed increasingly quickly in order for businesses to preserve their competitiveness. Regulatory requirements that often have to be met at short notice are yet another factor. In short, insurers have to increase their rate of innovation as well as the speed and flexibility with which they provide new products.

This requires stable, high-quality software systems that are always up to date and can be adapted to new requirements as quickly as possible. Yet the core systems of insurers are highly complex applications, and it costs a lot of time and money to implement new requirements. For example, it usually takes far too long to develop and deliver software releases, and the process is an error-prone and risky one in which many recurring procedures still have to be handled manually. And maintaining a consistent level of quality at the same time is a challenge unto itself.

Continuous delivery for faster software releases

How can this process be shortened in order to make new software features available promptly, regardless of whether the requirements are technical, regulatory or specific to a certain field? With continuous delivery and continuous integration. These two strategies play a key role as the central elements of agile software development. The practice of continuous integration and delivery defines the principles and technical practices that allow for the rapid, low-risk and efficient development and delivery of new software features. This way, new requirements can be made available rapidly and at minimal expense as soon as they become available.

Continuous delivery (CD) describes the development of a rapid, reproducible and reliable process for simplifying and greatly accelerating the delivery of software. In doing so, CD is heavily reliant on automating the entire delivery process. Not only does this shorten the process as a whole, but fewer errors are made that negatively affect how the software operates.

Fast feedback for a fast response

Continuous integration (CI) ensures that changes can be made to the source code of software through automated integration and end-to-end tests before the software is released. The developers quickly receive feedback on code changes, enabling them to fix potential errors or problems relating to the application as a whole at an early stage in the ongoing development process. Also known as the shift-left approach, this strategy involves significantly lower costs. After all, it is far more efficient to identify and fix software errors or security flaws before a release.

By automating the build, deployment and testing processes and improving the collaboration between developers, testers and IT departments, teams can provide changes of impeccable quality on a daily basis, regardless of the size of the product or the complexity of the IT architecture. Continuous delivery guarantees that the quality of software is tested and optimised continuously.

msg insur:it uses continuous delivery

msg insur:it practises consistent agile software development. Continuous delivery and continuous integration complement the basic principle of agile software development, which is why msg insur:it uses these methods to develop and deliver software releases. This makes it possible to keep the rapidly growing complexity of IT applications under control.

The software application is divided into numerous smaller deployment units, such as docker containers, which map a technical domain and can be launched separately from one another.

The use of docker container technology is an elegant way of implementing an environment parity strategy, which means that the environment remains constant in every test stage, from development to deployment. As such, the purpose of environment parity is to use the identical deployment in all stages and therefore preclude potential deployment problems from the outset.

The deployment pipeline automates all processing and validation stages that a piece of software passes through before it is released, making the pipeline a technical model of the procedure described above.

Rapid implementation of customer requirements within msg.Insurance Suite

msg.Insurance Suite (SaaS) @ ITC DIA Europe Amsterdam 2024

The use of continuous delivery and continuous integration for msg.Insurance Suite makes it possible to provide quality software releases on a daily basis or in just a few hours. Urgent changes can be delivered at short notice without the customer being forced to wait for other features to be completed. Customer requirements can be implemented quickly and flexibly. msg insur:it uses continuous delivery in standard and custom projects, meaning that all changes, adjustments and fixes are passed on to the customer immediately through standard updates. Customers even gain instant access to new features.

The use of continuous delivery dramatically lowers the risks of delivering a release. Continuous delivery and the shift-left approach greatly lower the risk of system breakdowns or crashes. Fixing vulnerabilities at an early stage and releasing security updates on a continuous basis also provide effective protection against cyber-attacks. The continuous, fast and legally compliant delivery of software updates is even vital in terms of implementing regulatory requirements and compliance specifications.

Benefits of continuous delivery

Shorter release cycles for more frequent software launches
Hotfixes are released quickly
Continuous quality improvement and assurance
No release acquisition risks (in terms of deadlines, quality, budget, migration etc.)
Fewer manual processes; manual testing takes place in parallel
Continuous, rapid feedback allows for instant troubleshooting
Customisation can continue simultaneously without being interrupted by switches to releases
Lower costs due to a fully automated process
Vulnerabilities and malfunctions are fixed quickly for high security
Reliable delivery of new, high-quality features