site reliability engineering

Powering digital reliability for an industrial manufacturer

How we used SRE to reduce downtime by 90%, with 75% faster Incident Resolution
Our client is among the world’s most reputed organizations and is the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe. The conglomerate holds the position of global market leader in industrial automation and industrial software. They were facing a set of challenges related to unpredictable downtime and their cloud infrastructure had also grown intricate, making it challenging to swiftly identify and resolve issues. The need for a more unified approach to reliability became evident as they sought to maintain impeccable site performance in a competitive digital landscape. By embracing Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, they achieved unprecedented success, and this is their story.

The Challenges

Our client started with a standard set of challenges that many digital enterprises face: unpredictable downtime, cascading failures, and sluggish performance. Their existing cloud infrastructure was sprawling and complex, making it difficult to identify the root causes of issues and respond rapidly to incidents. The lack of a unified approach to reliability was costing them both financially and in terms of reputation.

SRE Challenges

Transition to SRE

Recognizing the need for a comprehensive solution, Nagarro enabled and implemented the SRE framework & culture for them, We appointed an experienced and dedicated team of SREs who partnered closely with development and operations teams. This cross-functional collaboration allowed them to bridge the gap between software development and IT operations, fostering a culture where reliability was everyone's responsibility.

Transition to SRE

Service Level Objectives (SLOs)

We established clear SLOs for each service, defining acceptable levels of reliability. This enabled teams to prioritize their efforts based on user impact and business goals.

Automation First

Manual tasks were minimized through automation. Routine maintenance, deployment, and scaling processes were automated, reducing the risk of human error and increasing consistency.

Blameless Postmortems

Instead of assigning blame for incidents, Nagarro enabled & implemented a blameless postmortem process. The focus shifted to understanding the root causes and implementing preventive measures.

Continuous Monitoring and Testing

Comprehensive monitoring and testing were implemented at every stage of the development pipeline. This allowed teams to catch potential issues before they reached production.

Load Balancing and Redundancy

Load balancing strategies and redundancy were employed to ensure services could handle sudden spikes in traffic and hardware failures without disrupting user experience.

Cultural Shift

A culture of learning from failures and celebrating reliability achievements was cultivated. Recognition and rewards were tied to maintaining and improving system reliability.

The Results

The transition to SRE yielded remarkable results for our client: 

Reduction in downtime

Dramatic Reduction in Downtime

Downtime due to system failures dropped by over 90%, leading to a significant increase in user satisfaction and retention.

SLOs

SLO’s

We were able to achieve the Four 9's of SLO's.

incident resolution

Faster Incident Resolution

The mean time to recover from incidents decreased by 75% due to streamlined processes and improved incident response strategies.

Development velocity

Improved Development Velocity

With automated testing and deployment pipelines, development teams could release new features and updates faster, without compromising on reliability.

Financial savings

Financial Savings

The reduction in downtime and faster incident resolution translated into substantial cost savings, as less time and resources were spent on firefighting and recovery efforts. Over the course of four years Nagarro SRE Team was able to achieve 30% of Cloud infrastructure savings.

enhanced reputation

Enhanced Reputation

Product offerings from our clients earned a reputation for reliability and stability, attracting new customers and partners, and boosting its position in the market.

Conclusion

This success story exemplifies the transformative power of embracing Site Reliability Engineering principles. By fostering collaboration, setting clear objectives, and investing in automation and continuous improvement, they not only achieved unparalleled reliability but also gained a competitive edge in the digital landscape. Other divisions of our clients looking to elevate their reliability game and create lasting value for their stakeholders and users will find inspiration in this story.