Access to cloud and DevOps engineering professionals is more difficult for startups, and yet it is a mission-critical necessity.
For the med-tech start-up PeriVision, the globally available, robust and, above all, secure operation of its software solution on cloud infrastructure is a critical success factor. PeriVision uses virtual reality and AI algorithms to support doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases. The heterogeneous regulatory requirements in different markets and the highest standards of quality and data security demand not only a convincing product but also professional DevOps engineering for cloud resources and CI/CD automation.
Unfortunately, startups like PeriVision have limited access to the DevOps engineering skills they need. Good DevOps engineers are a rare and expensive commodity per se. Furthermore, the varying demand for these skills usually does not justify the creation of a full-time position. To enable the internal software engineering team to fully concentrate on the development of new eye tests, diagnostic and prognostic algorithms, PeriVision needs DevOps and cloud engineering resources that it can flexibly tap into as needed.
Close collaboration with the product engineering team ensures secure and robust cloud operation without impairing speed and efficiency in development.
To reconcile the conflicting goals of DevOps engineering, close and direct collaboration with the product engineering team is essential. This is the only way to ensure that the cloud infrastructure and the CI/CD automation enables both speed and flexibility in development and testing, as well as the secure and stable operation of all software components.
Successful DevOps engineering applies to both the technologies and tools used to release, deploy and operate software solutions and cloud infrastructure, as well as to the related organizational processes. In order not to impair the productivity of the product engineering team or the availability of the product, any DevOps engineering activities should improve either processes or technology—never both together.
A robust cloud-native architecture, along with consolidated CI/CD processes and tools, facilitate the job of developers and testers and ensures product availability for users.
The cloud infrastructure and the way the different components of the application are produced have been completely redesigned with the support of EMBRIO.tech. The entire infrastructure is now standardized and reproducibly defined using Infrastructure as Code (IaC). The application components are fully versioned and containerized and can thus be operated in a standardized way in a Kubernetes cluster.
The new setup enables the PeriVision team to configure and deploy new operating environments—for example, for test and approval studies or new customers—with little effort. Regulatory requirements such as approved versions of the individual components or the geographical location of the data and computing centers can be easily defined. The workload resulting from tasks that are not directly related to the development and improvement of the product is now significantly lower.