Cloud-native

Development

Driving agile product, service and

experience innovation at scale
Today’s organizations require agility and innovation
How will you realize the full
to deliver seamless digital experiences—anytime,
anywhere. Cloud solutions are essential enablers of potential of cloud-native
agile operating models that adapt continuously to
constant change.
development to accelerate
Mastering cloud-native software development to your transformation?
drive rapid innovation at scale and fidelity takes
learning, practice and organizational tuning. Many
organizations see the promise and are on the
path, yet struggle to seize the prize and fully realize
cloud-native development’s potential.

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Driving business results with strategic
cloud modernization at scale
Cloud is the “new normal” for Today’s enterprise cloud challenges often stem According to executives in the 2021 CGI
Voice of Our Clients research:
from inflexible cloud strategies, overly simplistic
how we work and an essential
3rd
modernization efforts, immature cloud-native
enabler of agile operating practices, poorly governed and integrated yet
sprawling SaaS solutions, and governance,
models that adapt continuously management and operational models that were
highest innovation priority is investing in
IT agility in the coming 3 years.
to constant change. not designed for the velocity, connectedness and

Some say cloud is the new operating model,

especially in a digital world of anywhere operations.
dynamism of the cloud age.
Mastering cloud-native software development to
2x
drive rapid innovation at scale and fidelity takes revenue and profit growth from digital
Over nearly two decades, cloud services have leaders’ agile operating models
learning, practice and organizational tuning. Many
become mass-adopted and pervasive. Cloud service compared to those just building or
organizations see the promise and are on the path, yet
providers—ranging from AI start-ups to independent launching digital strategies.
struggle to seize the prize and fully realize cloud-native
software vendors to hyper-scalers—continue to
development’s potential.
innovate new services at a breakneck pace. The
combination of cloud and other technologies, such >95%
as Internet of Things, advanced analytics, artificial of new digital initiatives will use cloud-
intelligence, automation, 5G and edge computing, form native platforms as foundation, by 2025.
the key ingredients of modern digital business solutions. (Source: Gartner®1)

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A balanced, flow-based software
innovation approach
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus described the world with the phrase “panta rhei” or “everything
flows.” Our approach uses systems thinking to focus on optimizing the whole. We look at the
overall flow of work and value to eliminate the largest bottlenecks.
We balance human-centered design (HCD), domain-based composable software architecture,
aligned team topologies, and cloud-native platforms. We work closely with you to get these
dimensions right, and they are critical characteristics of our cloud-native software factory model.

We work with you on three fronts: • Flexible sourcing, skilling and scoping (who):
• Innovation compass (why and what): Using We collaborate with you on the best sourcing,
HCD and domain and stream-based software skilling and scoping approach. Based on your
architecture, we help you prioritize and innovate the skills gaps and goals, we co-staff key teams for
right things. alignment and knowledge transfer. We adapt With our human-centered, cloud-native
to your desired blend of onsite, onshore and software development and DevSecOps
• Innovation best practices (how): We co-develop
nearshore operation, and can scope from agile
the best team topologies and set-ups for agile, services, we partner with you to bring
cloud-native software delivery to full DevOps,
high-fidelity software innovation flows. We help with
including SRE teams. product, service and experience
key platform and technology recommendations
innovations to market at pace and
and implementations in a continuous integration/
continuous delivery (CI/CD), DevSecOps and site
scale—and put agile innovation into your
reliability engineering (SRE) model. organization’s operating DNA.

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What cloud-native success looks like
• Speed: Rapid release times and frequency allow for innovation and new functionality to be delivered fast and
at scale to support your “sense and respond” operating model.
• Stability: Your cloud platforms and SRE model use the highest degree of automation and facilitate stability
and resilience.
• Scalability: Your containerized run-time environments and serverless architectures effortlessly scale based
on demand, optimizing cloud resource consumption.
• Savings: Your pervasive 12-factor app design pays back with easy portability and scalability, easy hand-offs
between developers and easy continuous deployment.
• Security: Your cloud platforms support continuous patching, zero-downtime upgrades and instant
“repaving” of virtual infrastructure to stay ahead of the latest threats.
• Satisfaction: HCD at the front of your cloud-native software development flow creates differentiating and
meaningful experiences for customers and employees.
• Skills: Your employees have mastered the cloud-native software development factory model, with experience
in low/no code development, agile DevSecOps and SRE.
• Swift delivery: An architectural focus on composability and microservice is paying off, enabling quick
reconfiguration of components into new critical business capabilities.

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CGI Cloud-native Software Development Services

Experience & Cloud-native Cloud-native

Design Platform Set-up Software Factory
Designing human-centered Implementing, configuring Accelerating product and
products, services & and operating a modern service innovation with a
experiences, using design cloud development and run- globally scalable and blended
thinking sprints and rapid time platform, on-premise or software factory –
prototyping PaaS; enabling DevSecOps keeping pace with business
Dynamic Product and SRE Lean Agile change
Development Sprint DevOps @ Scale
Building new MVPs in the cloud as Our Lean Agile DevOps
fast as possible, realizing cloud’s (LADx) pivot framework
full potential by using cloud-native drives the behavior and high
technologies performance needed to
and 12-factor method deliver high fidelity, scalable
change

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Experience and Design Dynamic Product Development Sprint
Our human-centered experience and design teams help you prioritize and build We focus on rapidly co-creating a new product or service in the cloud: from idea,
products and services that can be used intuitively and delight your internal or design and minimum viable product (MVP), to build and scale. The right team
external customers. topology, agile method, tech stack, cloud-native platform and architecture are
We conduct human-centered ambition workshops to create alignment between crucial for success. Our application services optimization program (ASOP) “in-a-box”
your business, customers, stakeholders and technology. From ideation to can serve as a launch pad and accelerator.
innovation, we help you envision fresh solutions. We facilitate product, service and We start with an innovation idea that leads to a business vision and business case.
user experience (UX) design sprints. Our designers use rapid prototyping with If available, we validate and refine your existing work. During high-level design, we
an experimental approach that allows our joint teams to test and adjust business define a scope to launch a first MVP within a few months. In the first sprint, we start
concepts and technical solutions. with a nimble, two-pizza team topology. We drive rapid dynamic progress with a
We can also help you build out, staff and mature your own internal design/UX sequence of sprints, each with a refine-or-scale decision at the end.
studio with a flexible co-staffing model. Before launching the MVP, we switch tooling and team topology to DevSecOps
and SRE including additional training and stakeholder education. After MVP launch
and cool-off, we work the backlog to deliver new user-driven features towards full
productization. We regularly revalidate and adjust the business model and release
strategy to maximize value.
This service aims to build credibility in how to deliver cloud-native innovation rapidly.
It can serve as a template to replicate in other parts of your organization.

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Cloud-native Platform Set-up Lean Agile DevOps @ Scale for Cloud-native
We help you choose, set up and operate the right cloud-native platform and We support the move from a project-based, waterfall-driven organization to
supporting technology ecosystem. a product, domain and business stream-focused and flow-based delivery
organization. Our proven LADx method accelerates this transformational pivot.
For platforms, we can advise across the hyperscalers (e.g., AWS,
It supports the leading scaling agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe, LeSS, DA) as well
Microsoft® Azure and Google’s GCP), leading ISV platforms (e.g., Red Hat®
as the 12-factor cloud-native application methodology.
OpenShift and VMware Tanzu™ hosted on public or private clouds) and
pure Kubernetes with open-source components. Our experts assess your maturity across skills, organization model, team
topologies, operational processes, and the platform and technology stack.
For supporting cloud-native technology, we cover container technologies,
A series of workshops drives stakeholder alignment, business domain and
DevOps toolchains (including security components for DevSecOps) and
value stream models, and the design of the agile operating model and team
emerging application-platform-as-a-service (aPaaS) components such
topologies. Training sessions prepare employees for new roles, working in
as serverless, API gateways and service meshes. We also help with the
agile scrum teams, and prioritizing work from value-driven backlogs. Our
purpose-fit monitoring, observability and AIOps solutions to enable full SRE.
experienced coaches support the new scrum teams in their sprint cycles
We provide reference blueprints and vendor evaluations and offer our CGI and train product owners and scrum masters to perform as coaches.
SiteReliability360 for AIOps-powered multi-cloud management. We can Retrospectives capture lessons learned for subsequent program increments.
assist with implementation, integration, tuning and operation, transferring
DevOps and SRE capabilities are gradually integrated into the operating model
knowledge along the way.
via appropriate sprints. A Center of Enablement and a platform team support
We deliver this service as stand-alone or as part of our Cloud-native enterprise-wide consistency and capabilities.
Software Factory.

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Cloud-native Software Factory
Our software factory model standardizes, streamlines and optimizes the cloud-
native software development process for an accelerated product and service
innovation flow at scale.
We leverage our proven ASOP, LADx and CGI SiteReliability360 accelerators. We
introduce a standard delivery model based on an agile scaling framework and
set up team topologies for fast flow. We bring key cloud-native systems thinking
and architecture tenets, as well as platform and tech stack recommendations and
reference architectures. Our model shifts the focus from cost and activity to value
stream, flow of work, time-to-market and quality.
During the design phase, the factory is tailored to your desired mix of insourced,
outsourced and hybrid (where we support your employees with key expertise, skills
and coaching). We also advise on and implement the right cloud-native platform(s)
and technology stack.
The design phase is followed by a launch and “bake-in” phase, leading to full
operation and scaling. Over time, the degree and sophistication of test and release
automation is dialed up. The factory can be configured towards a full LADx and SRE
mode to also manage and optimize the ongoing CloudOps and AIOps aspects of
the software.

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Case in point
Cloud-native sprint digitizes and automates COVID-19
information for citizens
When the COVID-19 pandemic first reached a used natural language processing to refine the
Canadian province, the government’s 8-1-1 helpline digital assistant’s ability to understand questions and
saw a spike in calls, creating long wait times for respond appropriately.
constituents to get advice. The digitization, rapid migration and staging of
In discussing how to manage the call volume, the critical information has allowed the digital assistant
idea was to develop a digital assistant to triage to field hundreds of thousands of data requests,
questions, direct callers to the right services and providing immediate responses to inquiries. In the
answer pressing questions in a matter of seconds. early critical stages of the pandemic, the digital
In an agile, human-centered design and assistant also helped answer healthcare workers’
development sprint, the team of government and vital questions, including how to best wear and
CGI experts developed a digital agent MVP in just 7 remove personal protective equipment.
days using a public cloud-native platform—Google
Dialogflow on Google Cloud Platform. They also

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Case in point
Fueling an airline’s digitization with a cloud-native factory
and DevOps
CGI is a long-term partner to a European airline The program reduced deployment times
in improving their customer experience and from hours to minutes, increased deployment
omni-channel sales. When the company started frequency from bi-weekly to several per day,
an extensive digitization program, CGI was the and cut wait times for infrastructure setup and
logical partner of choice. changes to minutes. The increase in agility and
We helped the client plan and execute a speed to market is transformative.
modern API architecture, using integrations, As a result, the company’s innovative app gives
microservices and an API Gateway, to passengers peace of mind by providing relevant
enable consistent services across channels, information at just the right time during their
including partners. The collaboration included journey. This is because back-end processes
forming a model for DevOps and CloudOps, flow without a hitch to provide information that
operationalized in a scalable cloud-native is always available and up to date.
development factory on AWS.

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We combine industry and technology expertise and
industrialized cloud-native software engineering
For 45+ years, we’ve been a strategic partner in helping leading organizations achieve state-of-the-art
software engineering at scale. We apply our deep understanding of:
When it comes to
innovation through • Our clients’ industries. We analyze the trends that • Technology. Our global network of emerging
scalable cloud-native are changing these industries. technology teams and centers continuously scans
the technology landscape to provide you with
software development, we • Software engineering. We apply the ASOP,
salient advice.
LADx and CGI SiteReliability360 accelerators we
bring you the full breadth developed for our own portfolio of 200+ industry • Innovation. In our 12 Innovation Labs, we
and depth of cloud-native solutions. We understand how to operate hybrid co-create with clients and prototype breakthrough

services, industrialized environments: your premises, our premises, multi-

clouds, the edge, with CloudOps and AIOps.
solution to your toughest problems.

methods and global scale. • Cloud. Over the last decade, we built our practice
• Architecture. We have a global architecture
practice with 1,500 certified architects and our
of 7,000+ cloud strategists, architects, developers Responsive, Collaborative approach to Digital
and operators to guide and support clients on their Architecture (RDCA).
cloud modernization journeys. We partner with all
major hyperscalers, PaaS and SaaS providers.

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When it comes to cloud-native development services CGI is the
partner of choice for our clients around the world. Let us help
CGI’s Cloud-native Software Development
you chart your future with our full breadth and depth of services
Services are part of our full suite of cloud services
and expertise.
designed to help with the transformation to an
agile, adaptive and resilient enterprise. In addition
We stand ready to work with you to
to cloud-native development innovation, we offer
accelerate the pace and agility of your cloud strategy, architecture and planning advisory,
software innovation in support of a IT and application cloud modernization, enterprise
sense and respond operating model for SaaS solution installation and configuration, cloud
today’s agile and adaptive enterprise. turn-around intervention, and ongoing cloud
management, operations and optimization services.

Contact us at [email protected] or learn more at cgi.com/cloud.

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About CGI
Insights you can act on
Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest IT and business consulting
services firms in the world. We are insights-driven and outcomes-based
to help accelerate returns on your investments. Across 21 industry
sectors in 400 locations worldwide, our 80,000 professionals provide
comprehensive, scalable and sustainable IT and business consulting
services that are informed globally and delivered locally.
For more information,
Visit cgi.com
Email us at [email protected]

LADx is a trademark of CGI or its related companies.

Gartner® “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022,” David Groombridge, Frances Karamouzis, et al., 18 Oct 2021
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GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally
and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.