A tale of triumph with AWS and TestRail

iTMethods worked closely with a leading financial services company in North America to implement and migrate TestRail, a test case management and QA application, as part of their broader DevOps toolset. Following an acquisition, this customer sought a partner to provide ongoing managed services for their AWS environment and applications. This strategic move was crucial to maintaining high standards of security and operational efficiency for their dedicated team of approximately 1000 employees. The thoroughly connected interface of TestRail served to enable and optimize the customers’ QA process, and they needed iTMethods to implement it and manage it with the utmost security. 

The Challenge  

Before adopting TestRail, the company was lacking visibility into their QA process and their ability to track progress on their testing cases. Despite this, they had well-organized data, which meant that the primary technical challenge for the iTMethods was preparing two production systems to accept the migrated data during the acquisition. The customer wanted to adopt TestRail to centralize their data into two production systems that needed to be separated (each with its own data sets designated for two subsidiaries). Alongside the migration and operation of these systems, they would function within the AWS cloud and adhere to newly implemented security and access protocols. 

The tight timelines set by a separation agreement in the acquisition added to the complexity, making it crucial to explore both internal and external solutions with the necessary capabilities to guarantee a seamless migration. Building and delivering an efficient ETL process was essential to achieving streamlined data integration. Furthermore, providing ongoing support for numerous developer teams across various business sectors worldwide was vital to maintaining consistent system performance without interruption. 

The Solution 

The team at iTMethods thoroughly understood the data governance needs of our valued customers, delivering an ETL process that meticulously segregated specific data sets to ensure their confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility throughout the migration journey. Given the critical nature of this application within a larger DevOps pipeline, we ensured the highest levels of resiliency in our target environments. Utilizing AWS's highly available services, our deployment architecture offered unparalleled resiliency to the application, making it more robust and reliable than ever before. 

By setting up two production instances and one non-production instance of TestRail, we supported the business need to divest the two lines of business separately. Following the successful implementation and migration, iTMethods provided continuous Managed Services to the customer, ensuring full compliance with the most stringent security policies and practices on our managed DevOps SaaS Platform. 

The implementation of TestRail addressed the challenge of managing test cases and QA applications efficiently. By integrating TestRail into their software development and testing processes, the company achieved significant improvements in productivity and efficiency; allowing the company to produce a single source of truth for all testing efforts, enhancing real-time visibility into test results, progress, and coverage through its comprehensive dashboard and reporting suite. This level of transparency enabled the team to proactively identify and address potential bottlenecks or issues in their testing processes. 

TestRail also played a crucial role in simplifying test maintenance and enhancing team collaboration. Its intuitive interface and powerful features allowed the QA team to easily update and modify test cases without requiring extensive coding knowledge. This ease of use enabled the entire testing team to contribute to the automation efforts, reducing the complexity and potential for miscommunication. Furthermore, TestRail’s robust integration capabilities ensured seamless connectivity between manual and automated testing activities, providing a holistic view of all testing efforts on one platform.  

The Results  

Thanks to the expertise of iTMethods professionals and the advanced AWS services, the customer successfully achieved their technical goals. The ETL process efficiently extracted and transformed tailored data sets for each subsidiary, ensuring data isolation and segregation in line with their data governance needs. Integrating TestRail within the AWS environment enhanced the company’s software development lifecycle by ensuring seamless collaboration among developer teams, maintaining consistent system performance, and adhering to the tight timelines dictated by the separation agreement.  

Top Benefits from the TestRail Implementation  

• Productivity: Increased efficiency in managing test cases and QA applications, leading to a 30% reduction in testing time through TestRail implementation.  
• Cost Savings: Achieved operational efficiency and reduced downtime, resulting in an estimated 25% decrease in maintenance and support costs by leveraging AWS services.  
• Flexibility: Provided tailored solutions with two production instances and one non-production instance of TestRail, ensuring seamless integration and adaptability to specific business needs.  
• Scalability: Ensured scalable and resilient operations, supporting over 1,000 employees and multiple developer teams with AWS’s Elastic Load Balancing and EC2 Auto Recovery services.  
• Usability: Enhanced user experience and data integrity with a robust ETL process and clear data segregation, improving system usability for the customer’s teams.  
• Experience: Delivered a seamless migration and continuous Managed Services, ensuring compliance with stringent security policies and enhancing overall operational reliability and trust.   

About TestRail  

TestRail is the only centralized QA platform that gives you the power to build, connect, and optimize all of your testing processes. Over 10,000 QA teams use TestRail to release flawless products faster by testing more efficiently, getting real-time visibility at scale, and building confidence in QA.  

About iTMethods Inc. 

At iTMethods, we enable enterprises to excel in their digital transformation journeys through our expert Professional Services and cutting-edge Managed offerings. Our managed platforms, DSP – Managed DevOps SaaS Platform and iTMethods – AI WorkBench, offer robust, scalable solutions tailored to meet enterprise needs. We help organizations innovate faster, enhance security, and make informed, data-driven decisions, driving overall operational efficiency and growth. Find us on the AWS Marketplace (TestRail Managed Hosting on AWS).