A customized solution built for Port trust of Singapore, this project revolved around automating the system alerts and standard operating procedures internally.
About the project :
This project was done in accordance with the Port Trust of Singapore, who had a unique problem of trying to deal with system alerts on a daily basis in a cluttered and unstructured manner, where they had to handle almost half the volume of alerts manually. To automate their server operations, we built a method to be able to reduce the manual intervention for their Standard operating procedures to counter the workload.
Moreover, we enhanced the system with standard SOPS to be able to automate commands for running diagnostics like monitoring the storage capacity, operating & processing speeds, running the application services & monitoring the operational statuses, checking the logs periodically & based on log response take necessary actions in a guided manner.
Key Challenges
Break in efficiency due to manual operations
Since the volumes of system alerts were around 300 per day, out of which around 100 had to be handled manually, the efficiency quotient for their manpower had taken a huge hit.
No self-regulating means for script rendering & reporting mechanism
Current scenarios included manual server login to run commands for running a typical SOP which needed a time investment of 30 minutes per case, and moreover bringing down the accuracy and efficiency as well drastically.
Disconnect between different users & different authentication systems
The lack of dependency between different user roles performing their tasks, and disconnect between RSA & PAM authentication systems caused the entire workflow to falter at times.
Solutions
Light weight automated workflow management solution
We developed an open-source workflow management platform built around directed acyclic graphs, or DAGs, which served as collections of all the tasks required.
Single server solution with self performing checks
Built on Apache workflow, we built a self performing checking & resolution mechanism that could be organized and executed in a way that reflects the interrelated relationships and dependencies.
Reduced ambiguity & provided clear resolution path
An automation portal designed with high availability architecture to reduce downtime and increase the accuracy of the resolutions provided.
Results
- 35% reduction in manpower employment for SOP management & monitoring
- Improved reporting mechanism to apache airflow to source web portal
- 60% efficiency & accuracy increase in self initiated resolutions
- Better test cases provided for workflow automation testing
