Migration of the PNBC Application Environment
Project title: Migration of the PNBC Application Environment
Client: global leader in corporate banking
Industry: Banking, Finance & Insurance
Expertise: Cloud & Infrastructure
Project scope: Migration of the environment to RHEL8 and automation of the PNBC application deployment
Tools: Linux, Ansible, Jenkins, Git, GitHub, Bash
PNBC is an abbreviation for “Central Tax Bank Number,” an application developed to facilitate automated and regulatory-compliant tax management for businesses and financial institutions. The project focused on modernizing the application environment, adapting it to the current version of the Linux system, and implementing DevOps methodologies and automation for working with the application’s code.
The team’s expertise in banking environments and applications enabled the development of a solution that improves code management for developers and testers, while enhancing calculation speed for end-users. Leveraging extensive DevOps project experience, we tailored this methodology to the client’s needs and the application’s environment requirements.
ALTEN Polska’s Task
The ALTEN Polska team was tasked with migrating the application environment from the outdated RedHat Linux 6 distribution to the current and supported RedHat 8 version, alongside automating the workflows for the application’s codebase. The client entrusted these tasks to ALTEN Polska specialists due to their extensive expertise. The work included a full cycle—analyzing the existing environment, consulting and selecting the appropriate solution, implementing it, and testing the new environment.
The project aimed to modernize the environment supporting the application used for revenue calculations in one of the bank’s divisions, while also meeting the bank’s IT security infrastructure requirements.
Project Progress
The ALTEN Polska team, composed of experienced specialists—a programmer, solution architect, DevOps engineer, Project Manager, and integrator—completed the full migration of the application environment and introduced automation for new application releases.
The project began with an analysis of the existing environment, dependencies, and client expectations and requirements. Following the definition of the team’s responsibilities, a work plan was drafted, and tasks were allocated based on the specialists’ expertise. As work progressed, tasks often extended beyond the standard scope to meet client expectations.
The migration process included:
- Analyzing the existing environment and designing a new one tailored to the client’s requirements, optimizing performance and costs.
- Launching virtual machines and deploying them in the client’s environment.
- Automating package and software installations in the new environment using Ansible.
- Running the existing application in the new environment.
- Designing and implementing an automated code deployment process for pre-production and production environments using Jenkins and GitHub.
- Verifying and testing the application in the newly designed and automated environment.
The ALTEN Polska team executed the migration while adhering to the client’s requirements for audits and rigorous access procedures within the bank.
Final Outcome
By entrusting the migration process to the dedicated specialists at ALTEN Polska, the client received comprehensive support throughout the migration and a fully operational banking application environment, along with new automated procedures for working with the application code. The environment was thoroughly tested for functionality and performance, and detailed documentation was provided to facilitate reproducibility and understanding of the technical aspects of the environment.
Summary
This project presented a significant challenge due to the complexity of access processes and internal bank compliance requirements. Nonetheless, it did not negatively impact the project timeline or the quality of the solution delivered by ALTEN Polska experts. Our solution significantly reduced the technological debt of the client’s environment, while the automation of application code workflows provides the client with greater control over new application releases, saving time and resources needed for deployment.
