Sanlam has chosen 9th BIT Consulting as its partner in implementing XebiaLabs’ XL Release and XL Deploy. 9th BIT has also be contracted to provide service guide and support the solution on an ongoing basis.

This solution, which is a key element of Sanlam’s IT environment, will provide them with visibility, automation and control to deliver software faster and with less risk. Sanlam has a number of mission critical in-house and customer-facing applications, written in a variety of languages and frameworks that need to be integrated to various middleware environments.

“With the complexity of managing and automating the deployment coupled with the need to reduce the risk of downtime across the Sanlam environments, it is crucial that day to day business operations are not impacted,” says Barnie van Eck, senior production manager: integration at Sanlam IT Infrastructure Shared Services. “Speedy time-to-market also needs to be taken into consideration. The XebiaLabs offerings will help us automate our deployments and manage the release lifecycle, thus assisting us to deliver a better service to our business.”

Barry de Waal, chief executive: strategy and sales at 9th Bit, adds: “We are delighted that Sanlam chose to partner with us, based our expertise and best-of-breed products, to embark on their DevOps and continuous delivery journey. The ease of use, built in functionality and plug-in architecture allowed us to fit into the Sanlam environment seamlessly and quickly, and show value in a very short time frame.

“This solution will also assist Sanlam in reducing time to market of new products and services.”

9th BIT Consulting recently concluded a partnership agreement with XebiaLabs to supply products and solutions into the South African market.