SMALS : Open to a Shift Belgian e-government’s journey to PaaS 15/10/2015 1
About Smals – “ICT for society”
In-house ICT for the Belgian government
Shared services for public institutions• Software development
• Infrastructure & 24x7 operations
• Staffing
Cost-sharing not-for-profit model• Technical standards
• Economies of scale
• Code re-use
• Flexible provisioning
• Develop & retain expertise
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About Smals – Our history
• Focus on social security services & health care• Birth & child allowance
• Unemployment allowance
• Mutual health insurance
• Income guarantee
• Paid vacation leave
• Pension
• …
• Founded in 1939
• Over 75 years of shared services
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About Smals – Today
• Strong pressure on governement budgets !!
• Very mission-critical applications
• Strong privacy requirements
Increased collaboration
ICT synergy program: Community Cloud (G-Cloud)- IaaS / PaaS / SaaS
- PaaS includes full Open Source stack
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PaaS – Business challenge
• In 2014 we had a traditional infrastructure based on
WebLogic 10
• Need to migrate for technical reasons
• So first we looked at our business
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In-house shared services for several institutions
Different steps needed to get to the result
By a specialist
Performed in sequence
We are flexible
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“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that
he wants as long as it is black” (Henry Ford)
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Our solution is best in class
in 1910...
Today’s customer wants fancy features :
• windscreens
• airbags
• safety belts
So we optimized the process via
custom automation
The need for PaaS – Conclusion
• Replacing the application server was not enough
• We needed a solution that is ...
– ready for change
– reliable
– cost-efficient
• ... and modify our processes to use it
So we chose Openshift Online Enterprise v2
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A mindset-shift was need
Before After
Machine oriented Application oriented
Different environments in DEV, ACC, PRD
Same environment + INT
Process & # tools Self contained, 100% automated installation
Manual interventions Zero-touch deployment
1 enterprise-wide solution standard solution with room for extension
Development team & Middleware team & DB team & Servers team & ...
1 team to deliver the service to the customer
PaaS – Core concepts
• Self-contained applications
– Put all information into the application
• even database changes !
– Use that information during deployment
• Automate as much as possible
– 95% : some security and network related stuff remained manual
work
• Set up the solution with all teams involved
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PaaS – Core concepts
• Full traceability
– Personal accounts
– Not for fingerpointing !
– Access to the logs based on the same security model
• Standard solution with room for extension
– To say it in Java : don’t make it final !
• Make it multi-tenant, even when you do it internally
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Lessons learned : the tools
• Auto idling helps increasing your efficiency
• Throw-away setups allow complex tests to be executed
earlier in the workflow
• Scaled deployments simplify your life
• Multiple technologies offer the same interface
• The open source model works
– We already delivered patches to JBOSS EAP and OpenShift
• Standardization is key
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Lessons learned : the process
• 95% automation -> All problems move to the last 5% !
• Providing a base solution :
– PRO : provides the needed flexibility
– CON : some people really love straight answers...
• More flexibility means more responsibility
• Changing a culture does not happen overnight
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Lessons learned : the model
• Being a shared services provider requires more/other
features than just “being on-premise”
• Security model is key
• Pricing aspects become important
• Openshift v2 has a clear application model
– PRO : easy to start with
– CON : we needed more flexibility
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PaaS – The road ahead
• Openshift v3
– We were part of the beta program
– Rolling it out at the moment in full multi-
tenancy
– Much more flexible... allows us to rethink
our view on infra
• Our infra team is setting up a cloud
with Openstack
– Line between IaaS and PaaS is blurring
• We’re grouping all initiatives into a
Belgian government cloud (G-Cloud)
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Smals, ICT for society02 787 57 11
Fonsnylaan 20 / Avenue Fonsny 20
1060 Brussel / 1060 Bruxelles
Contact
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@Smals_ICT
www.smals.be