Development team struggling with extended deployment schedules? Release cycles stretching for months? Engie’s marketing and sales team faced this reality with their release cycles taking up to 12 weeks and deployments happen mostly in the weekends.

The challenge: breaking free from legacy WebSphere environments

Engie’s EOS application handled critical B2B billing processes. Their production environment ran on WebSphere 8.5 AIX, while developers worked in Tomcat.

The goal? Create a unified application server environment where development mirrors production. This alignment would set the foundation for faster, more reliable deployments.

The Journey: A three-phase DevOps transformation

Phase 1: Finding the right foundation with Websphere Liberty

We started with solid analysis. IBM’s Transformation Advisor helped us evaluate the options. WebSphere Liberty stood out as the clear winner. It matched or exceeded the performance of both the existing platform and TomEE, while keeping application changes minimal.

Phase 2: Standardization Before Speed

We built a robust foundation with three key elements:

• A highly-available WebSphere Liberty environment spanning dual datacenters
• Custom IBM PureApplication patterns that integrated seamlessly with existing systems
• Standardized development environments from test through to production

Phase 3: Automation and Developer Empowerment

With our foundation in place, we transformed the development workflow:

• Developers gained self-service environments for building and testing
• Infrastructure provisioning became automated
• Teams could deploy directly from test to production without waiting for OPS

The Impact: Measurable Results

The transformation delivered clear results across technical and business fronts.

Release cycles shortened dramatically from 12 weeks to just 2 weeks, while application performance jumped by 25%. The standardized container-based environment now gives Engie a clear path to future cloud migration. For the business, eliminating weekend deployments cut operational costs significantly. Developers now work more efficiently during standard business hours.

Looking ahead, Engie’s journey isn’t over. With additional test process automation, they could potentially cut their deployment time from two weeks to just two days.

Want to learn how your team could achieve similar results? Start with our Websphere assessment. We’ll assess your current situation and give you a clear and practical roadmap for what’s next. Get your developers back to doing what they do best – building great software.