Case study rapid growth compels leading antivirus software company software luxoft for kaspersky lab
1. For more information about Luxoft, visit
www.luxoft.com
www.luxoft.com/technology/
case study
Rapid Growth Compels Leading Antivirus Software
Company to Identify and Streamline Operating efficiencies
Kaspersky Lab Saves Time and Money By Partnering with
Luxoft to Automate Testing Procedures and Integrate New
Processes
14.09.2012
uu Summary: Kaspersky Lab has experience explosive growth. With
the growth of personnel staff company faced with the necessarily of
operational efficiency increase.
Client
Kaspersky Lab is the most popular in Russia company providing in anti-virus
solutions - protection from harmful and undesirable software, hacker attacks and
spam. The largest anti-virus company in Europe is included into top-four world
leader manufacturers of anti-virus software for end users according to IDC.
2. Challenge
Solution
Why Luxoft?
In order to keep up with the fast growth, it was necessary to revise the overall
organization structure. The decision was made to outsource the task to the
independent experts.
Detailed analysis of current processes leading to a formal proposal on how best to
build and maximize the automated testing infrastructure for their newly created
Testing Automation Group.
uu Luxoft was selected, based on a long-standing relationship with Kaspersky Lab
uu Luxoft has been providing training services for Kaspersky Lab’s employees for a
number of years
uu Luxoft’s excellent track record and financial stability were another two deciding
factors
“Thanks to Luxoft’s expertise and professionalism, we obtained new
understanding of internal processes and were able to optimize our
operations, avoiding unnecessary duplication of efforts.”
Vyacheslav Samarin, Head of Testing Services,
Kaspersky Lab
02Luxoft - Case Study
3. 03Luxoft - Case Study
Kaspersky Lab is on a Mission: Safe the
World from Cyber Threats by Providing
Best-in-Class Information Security Solutions
Anti-malware company must always stay two steps ahead of the perpetrators.
Responding rapidly and effectively to Internet threats taken a concerted effort
from the entire technology community and Kaspersky Lab is proud to be leading
the initiative.
Since 1997, Kaspersky Lab, headquartered in Moscow, Russia, has been successfully
intercepting and mitigating cyber threats for millions of users worldwide. For the
short term company became world`s largest manufacturer of INFOSEC software
for home and office and also world`s largest manufacturer of anti-virus software,
protection systems from hacker and spam attacks. Today, more than 300 million
people are protected by Kaspersky Lab technologies and every day, more than
50,000 new users come on board.
Implementation
Outsourcing Benefits & Key Results
uu Architectural Review/Audit of the Automated Testing Infrastructure
uu Development of Metrics and Evaluation Criteria to Measure Efficiency
uu Creation of a Process Flow Diagram for Interdepartmental Collaboration
uu Authoritative and expert opinion and analysis of the quality of test automation
processes
uu Easy-to-use framework for metrics, which is currently being implemented at
Kaspersky Lab
uu Better understanding of the internal processes, enabling efficient optimization
of company’s operations without unnecessary duplication of efforts
uu Saved a considerable amount of time and money using Luxoft process flow
template. The estimated time savings is a minimum of three months.
4. 04Luxoft - Case Study
Staying Ahead of the Competition
…And the Criminals
Experiencing explosive business growth like they have — a 140% annual increase
in bookings in 2007 to more than $200 million — means ratcheting up it’s full-
time Kaspersky Lab staff to 900. In 2008 number of employees achieved 1250, in
the end of 2009 — 1800. The tendency also means finding new ways to operate
more efficiently. Facilitate resolution of the critical issue may external partner able
to identify and integrate more efficient operating processes into Kaspersky Lab
organization structure.
“Our revenues had grown dramatically and the company’s growth followed,”
says Vyacheslav Samarin, Head of Test Services Department for Kaspersky.“That
resulted in the necessity to revise the overall organizational structure and make it
more effcient.”
“The decision was made to gather various automation groups into a single until
that would address test automation tasks. Our ultimate goal was to improve the
overall effciency of our operations,”he states.
Time For A Fresh Perspective
Samarin said the decision to outsource the automation made sense for two
reasons:“We wanted to get an independent and objective opinion of our current
automation process overall. Secondly, and more importantly, we wanted to let in
new ideas.”After considering several vendors for the project, the decision became
apparent. Luxoft emerged as the obvious choice to provide the professional
consultation services needed to accomplish their goal.
Established originally in 1995 as a software development center of IBS, the largest
and most successful Russian IT holding company, Luxoft was incorporated as a
separate entity to focus on the growing market for oshore software services in the
U.S. and Europe in 2000. Luxoft’s core value proposition is to help clients succeed
in the marketplace by applying technology, services and engineering excellence to
complex problems and critical business issues.
With nearly 3,000 employees, Luxoft continues to provide world-class innovation
and added value to its clients through flexible delivery models, the world’s best IT
talent pool, low attrition rates, and highest security and quality standards.
“We had a long-standing relationship with Luxoft, since we’d been using their
training services for years. They’d proven themselves as experts in consulting and
we were confident in their professionalism and the quality of their services.”
5. 05Luxoft - Case Study
Mapping and Measuring the Road to
Efficiency
Kaspersky Lab wanted a detailed analysis of current processes leading to a formal
proposal on how best to build and maximize the automated testing infrastructure
for their newly created Testing Automation Group. The anti-virus software
products provided by Kaspersky are complex, each with a different architecture of
automated tests. Luxoft experts needed to carefully evaluate various aspects of the
framework’s architecture and design for each project.
This was no small task, given that while working on the test automation process
optimization, Luxoft needed to consider the structural changes that were taking
place at Kaspersky Lab after The Testing Automation Group was formed. The TAG
team was to serve different projects across several company departments. That
mandate created urgency around achieving a high degree of process unification
and code re-use while retaining a flexibility to vary a degree of code re-use in new
test development.
The Luxoft team consisted of six professionals who, with no permanent on-site
presence, accomplished three major objectives:
uu Implement an Architectural Review/Audit of the Automated Testing
Infrastructure
uu Develop Metrics and Evaluation Criteria to Measure Efficiency
uu Create a Process Flow Diagram for Interdepartmental Collaboration
1. Architectural review of the automated testing structure.
After careful and detailed analysis of three different client projects, Luxoft
developed proposals for the new TAG team on how to build the automated
testing infrastructure for maximum performance. For each individual projects, an
evaluation was conducted on various aspects of the framework’s architecture and
design, including
uu Overall framework concept
uu Functional decomposition efficiency
uu Logging of the test stages and check results
uu Error localization and correction
uu Checks
uu Test data management
uu Test scripts design
uu Programming code design
uu Cost & labor for test development and maintenance
Each aspect was then evaluated by a number of sub-criteria for a rigorous and
thorough audit result.
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2. Development of Metrics to Measure Eciency
Luxoft team members performed detailed analysis of how the measurements were
performed and then developed recommendations on how metrics collection can
be improved for the following tasks:
uu Feasibility study when selecting tests for automation
uu Costs evaluation and planning for the automation projects
uu Efficiency evaluation of the automation of the manual testing
uu Assurance of test process transparency and improvement of planning accuracy
uu Evaluation of individual contribution into the overall project’s activities
uu Evaluation of efficiency of the organization’s structural changes and the
automation process’continued improvement
For the convenience of its client, Luxoft generated a detailed manual with
instructions and best practices on how to collect metrics and apply them going
forward. Evaluation forms for some of the more critical tasks, such as Cost
Reduction Effect of Automation and ROI were also provided.
3. Process Flow Diagram Creation
After evaluating existing processes in Kaspersky Lab, the Luxoft team proposed the
optimized process vision in the form of a flow diagram. They identified processes
specific to testing and highlighted those that needed formalization, such as
instructions, templates, and forms. Each process was approached individually;
taking into account its own idiosyncrasies, and then broken down into 13
additional areas of analysis.
Process Flow Diagram
Example
“Having a visual representation of the testing processes allows us to clearly identify
relationships between various processes and project roles as well as shows us the
criteria of the process start and completion,”says Samarin.
“A process flow diagram is an essential tool for a project leader to properly organize
within the project. It helps new team members get up to speed more quickly and
department heads can use the diagram to integrate the testing processes into
company-wide product development.”
7. 07Luxoft - Case Study
Luxoft Delivers Results
The first goal of the project, getting an authoritative and expert opinion and
analysis of the quality of test automation processes, enabled Kaspersky to make
more informed decision for their future.
Luxoft provided a framework for metrics, which is currently being implemented at
Kaspersky Lab. With it, they were able to develop their own approach with ease.
Without it, launching a new process would have taken much longer and the quality
of the results could not be guaranteed.
The mapping of the current process and inter-departmental collaboration proved
to be a real breakthrough according to Samarin.“We obtained new understanding
of internal processes and were able to optimize our operations, avoiding
unnecessary duplication of efforts”.
Kaspersky Lab saved a considerable amount of time and money with the
development of the Luxoft process flow template, as well as the creation and
approval of subsequent process diagrams. The estimated time savings is a
minimum of three months.
Going the extra mile, Luxoft even prepared a detailed“Coding Guidelines”
document at their expense, much to the added delight of Kaspersky management.
Luxoft Consulting Expertise
uu Largest offshore software development company in Eastern Europe
uu 8+ years of successful delivery on global offshore software development
market
uu Quality Management System is compliant with ISO9001:2008 (confirmed by
Lloyd Register Quality Assurance)
uu SEI CMMI-DEV v1.2 level 5 compliant company (the only one company in CIS
area)
uu SEI partner
uu Atlassian partner
uu Dedicated SEP&QA professionals in Quality Center