Case Study Application Delivery Management

Airbus Octane leverages SAFe methodology adoption to enhance DevOps and agile software/system development and testing environment

Overview managing system testing with a project of this designs, manufactures, and maintains size: “To illustrate the complexities involved, industry-leading commercial aircraft, helicop- just look at the cabling of the Eurofighter cen- ters, , satellites, launch ter fuselage. This contains 12,000 single wires; and more. Boasting cutting-edge design, su- a total length of 33km. There are 230 different perior comfort, and unparalleled efficiency, connectors and the mass of the cabling bundle At a Glance they are setting the standard for the modern weighs 360kg. Many of the components of the ■ ■ Industry aviation and space industry. aircraft connected by these cables are soft- ware-driven and have to go through rigorous and Defence ■ Challenge testing to be cleared to fly. There are not just the ■ Location customer’s and Airbus’s testing requirements, division is part- ner in production of the Eurofighter Typhoon, but our industry is subject to strict regulations ■ one of the world’s most advanced new gen- that require extensive testing documentation.” ■ Challenge eration available on the market. Shorten project timeframes and improve Eurofighter Typhoon is Europe’s largest military Airbus wanted to create an automated end-to- engineering and development collaboration collaborative program. Projects like Eurofighter end software testing process to include gen- through adopting agile software development and testing have a lifespan of 40-50 years with many col- erating testing documentation and reduce the manual effort involved with this. Automation ■ laborative stakeholders involved. ■ Products and Services support and improved collaboration between ALM/Quality Center all the engineering teams will accelerate the Frank Westerbuhr, Expert ‘System Test and ALM Octane Test Tools’ at Airbus, explains the issues in delivery process and streamline certification. ■ An enterprise-wide focus on digitalization sup- ■ Results ports a scalable, agile, and DevOps approach. ++ Agile and SAFe practices accelerate delivery ++ Fully automated software testing in end-to-end “Working with ALM/QC and Solution process ++ Full visibility improves team collaboration evaluating Octane, especially within Westerbuhr describes the requirements: “The SAFe, is promising to shorten our ++ Automatically generated testing documentation whole team needs full visibility of requirements, supports compliance documentation project timeframes, saving us time release dates, test preparations, test execu- and money.” tion, and defects, all in one place so that rel- evant correlations and analysis can take place. FRANK WESTERBUHR We also want to provide automated testing; not Expert ‘System Test and Test Tools’ just automated test execution, but automated Airbus triggering of tests, which means the actual test “ALM/Quality Center automatically generates Word documents of test procedures, reports, and compliance records. These demonstrate that our processes are robust, and this instils trust and confidence, smoothing the path to regulatory compliance.” Contact us at: www.microfocus.com FRANK WESTERBUHR Expert ‘System Test and Test Tools’ Like what you read? Share it. Airbus

scripts need to reside within the automated Airbus sees additional value in more agile soft- promising­ to shorten our project timeframes, testing solution, and the test results are cap- ware development, and in a move to support saving us time and money. As each of our tured automatically.” this in its testing environment, it is evaluating projects is unique and long-term, it is hard to Micro Focus ALM Octane for its testing tool- quantify these benefits, but it is clear to us A long-standing partnership with Micro Focus chain. With ALM/QC used for large, ongoing that efficient and agile development and test- introduced Micro Focus ALM/Quality Center, projects, and Octane considered for new proj- ing practices are supporting our competitive already in use with various other Airbus proj- ects, Airbus leverages new capabilities, giving market position.” ects. For an Unmanned Aerial (UAV), full visibility into pipeline coverage, analysis, ALM/QC provides the overall system and and code changes to identify risks. equipment testing in a laboratory setting as also at on-aircraft ground tests. Effective test- Having the right testing technology is only part ing ensured the succcess of the first UAV test of the solution, and with distributed engineer- withoug any hitch ing and development teams, it is important that Airbus applies agile processes to support Full engineering teams, consisting of system-, an agile DevOps approach. It is under consid- software-, test-, and certification engineers, eration to adopt the Scaled Agile Framework can all work together within ALM/QC, deliver- (SAFe) across new projects. Westerbuhr com- ing their part of the total solution. The full vis- ments: “SAFe would provide us with organiza- ibility makes it easy to identify critical testing tional and workflow processes so that we can areas so that efforts and resources focus on scale our agile model across the enterprise. the high-value items. Octane provides native support for SAFe, us- ing the same terminology and process models. Airbus leverages ALM/QC to demonstrate It can support thousands of concurrent users safety compliance to customers. Test results with customized workspace configurations link to requirements and are used to generate and provide the corporate level visibility we documentation that shows fulfilment of the need within Airbus.” customer contract, and certification require- ments. Westerbuhr explains how the docu- Results mentation process worked prior to ALM/QC: ALM/QC and Octane support legacy projects “We used Excel and Word documents to show such as the Tornado and Eurofighter Avionic our test results. However, this was difficult to System Development. Westerbuhr leverages link to the requirements and it was very time- a vibrant online Micro Focus community: “As consuming and inefficient to match the two. a member of various forums I often find use- ALM/QC instead automatically generates ful hints and tips. I also attend user community Word documents of test procedures, reports, meetings, which are great information sources results, and compliance records. These dem- and networking opportunities.” onstrate that our processes are robust, and this instils trust, smoothing the path to regula- He concludes: “Working with ALM/QC and tory compliance.” evaluating Octane, especially within SAFe, is

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