Adaptability Required

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is the third busiest airport in the world. Processes must occur quickly at DFW, whether it's moving passengers through terminals or moving data through networks.

"DFW has more than 10 active Oracle applications that we must support every day," said William Flowers, vice president of Information Technology and CIO of DFW. "Because of this, the Airport must use software that makes managing the change process quicker and simpler."

To accomplish this, the Airport employed Stat®, an application change management solution from Quest Software for version control and patch impact analysis. DFW also uses the solution for migration of objects - moving modules of programming code that contain both data and procedures to manipulate that data.

"The Airport has experienced a positive difference in efficiency, accuracy and communication," Flowers said. "Since DFW implemented the program, the Airport has saved time managing changes to applications, and the process is more accurate."

Multiple Benefits

DFW uses Stat for PeopleSoft, Oracle EBusiness Suite and a custom application that works with its accounts receivables. Stat makes it easier to track changes during the application development process, as well as changes that occur once things are in production.

Stat was implemented in March 2009. With the new change management solution in place, the Airport's IT staff has a better overall view and can see what was changed, when and by whom, and oversight officials have a thorough audit trail.

"Without proper internal controls in place, code changes that cause problems can be difficult and time-consuming to find and correct later," said Larry Wells, applications manager for DFW. "On a paper trail, it's a little difficult to manage. Stat shows you all these details and keeps a record of all the changes to the workflow."

Workflows have been automated, eliminating manual work, rework and guesswork. DFW's developers can now easily revert to an earlier version of an application - allowing them to restore a target environment to its original state if necessary. It has given the Airport much more flexibility.

"The first major benefit was automating the migration of objects, because it's a dragand- drop from one environment to another," said Padma Joshi, project leader of DFW's Information Technology applications group. "Earlier, our staff would create a signoff sheet with screen prints that detailed the process. Then it would be provided to the DBAs (database administrators), and the DBAs would follow those steps."

Faster Workflows

Email notifications enabled by the software are also popular with the Airport's IT staff. Before deploying Stat, DFW IT staff relied on manual updates from the team member implementing the solution to gauge a task's progress. The software's email capabilities allow the work to move along faster, while keeping everyone informed along the way. As a project is moved through its stages among developers and project leads, no one ever has to wonder where things are - they know.

Impact analysis for patches has also helped Flowers and his team better predict the outcomes of patches they plan to apply. "Normally if you apply a patch, you do not know the impact, and where exactly it is going to have the impact," said Flowers. "With the functionality of Stat, we run the patch impact analysis before applying the patch, so our team knows where it's going to have an impact."

The Airport has a much more efficient workflow than it had prior to installing the software. Now when a new change request comes in, the assigned developer is automatically informed via email of any changes made to a task, eliminating communication gaps. When development is ready to move to test, it is sent to a DBA manager through a workflow, allowing staff to move from one workflow step to another.

Data and Details

It's now much easier to review an earlier version of an application, as is the case when the Airport periodically refreshes its Oracle E-Business Suite environment with the latest production data. By having the capability to review earlier versions, DFW's IT staff can evaluate previous changes made in development, and bring the data back using a simple drag-and-drop without having to redo the entire application.

Flowers and his team understand that, as with any agency, DFW's IT shop must constantly change, update and patch numerous applications. "Now we can keep up with those demands," Flowers said.