Efficient Software Development as a Competitive Advantage
R+V’s DevOps Transformation
R+V Versicherung is one of Germany’s leading insurance companies and a major player in the insurance market. R+V’s portfolio includes all standard insurance products for private and business customers. As a cooperative insurer, it is a trusted partner to nearly 9 million customers.
The project at a glance
- Less complexity, greater stability: Standardized development and operations processes on a central platform
- Future-proof scalability: Cloud-native infrastructure for growing demands and faster deployment
- Develop faster—stay compliant: Automated processes while adhering to regulatory requirements
- Stronger teams, faster results: Efficient collaboration through agile work methods and reusable standards
Background
R+V Versicherung faced the challenge of consolidating a highly fragmented and customized tool landscape. The existing infrastructure, consisting of applications such as GitHub Enterprise, SVN, Azure DevOps, and Jenkins, resulted in high maintenance costs and limited reliability, which negatively impacted development speed. At the same time, the company needed to comply with regulatory requirements and increase the speed of software development.
Another goal was to adopt Azure as a public cloud platform and migrate Kubernetes workloads from an on-premises solution (Rancher) to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). R+V had already purchased a GitLab Ultimate license to standardize DevOps processes and reduce the developers’ workload through automation and compliance management. What was still missing was the actual standardization of DevOps processes and the reduction of the developers’ workload through automation and compliance management.
Solution
Collaboration in a virtual team
Implementation of GitLab as a central DevOps platform
Migration to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Automation and Compliance
Using GitLab's CI/CD components
Collaboration in a virtual team
An interdisciplinary team of 15 members (including three experts from codecentric) was formed to pool their expertise. The team worked according to the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) methodology and was responsible for architectural decisions, planning, and implementation.
Implementation of GitLab as a central DevOps platform
Over the course of the project, which has been ongoing since 2023, the existing tool landscape was replaced by GitLab as a universal solution to create a unified and integrated platform for the entire developer journey. This involved replacing tools such as Jenkins and Spinnaker, as well as integrating security and governance features. In this process, the codecentric team assisted in analyzing which legacy systems needed to be replaced, what requirements existed, and which of these requirements could be met by GitLab.
Migration to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
In collaboration with R+V’s ART Platform team, codecentric provided support for migration planning and testing for the transition from GitHub to GitLab. The first workloads (GitLab Runner, Renovate) were migrated to AKS with support from codecentric. codecentric also assisted with the implementation of HashiCorp Vault for secure secret management and the use of Terraform and Helm for infrastructure automation. This ensured maximum security in secret management as well as high speed in product development while maintaining consistent standards.
Automation and Compliance
A particular focus was placed on process automation and regulatory compliance. This helped reduce the workload on the development teams and increased the efficiency of the development processes.
codecentric was also able to replace a Spinnaker-based deployment process with the GitLab Agent for Kubernetes, which is now much better integrated into the development process. The GitLab agents were also deployed using Terraform and Helm. codecentric also designed and implemented the onboarding process for deploying projects to K8s for R+V Versicherungen. This provides users with simplified access to Kubernetes directly from GitLab.
Using GitLab's CI/CD components
In addition, the project scope included the implementation and use of GitLab’s CI/CD components. These are modular pipeline definitions that individual R&D developers can incorporate into their own projects to encapsulate complexity. The CI/CD components were partly adopted from an open-source framework (to be continuous) and partly built and maintained within an inner-source community. This gives the development teams the opportunity to incorporate their feedback, ideas, and requests into the components.
Result
By introducing a centralized DevOps platform and systematically modernizing its infrastructure, R+V Versicherung was able to transform its software development in a sustainable way. Processes were standardized, complexity was reduced, and at the same time, the foundation was laid for a scalable, secure, and future-proof development organization. By the end of the project, the following results were achieved:
- Consolidation of the tool landscape: GitLab was successfully introduced as the central DevOps platform, reducing maintenance efforts and increasing reliability.
- More efficient development processes: Through automation and the adoption of best practices, the developer teams’ workload was reduced and the speed of software development was increased.
- Successful migration to AKS: The migration to Azure Kubernetes Service enabled a scalable and future-proof infrastructure.
- Strengthened collaboration: The virtual team promoted knowledge sharing and collaboration among the various stakeholders.
Overall, R+V now has a powerful and compliance-oriented development platform that meets both the regulatory requirements of the insurance industry and the expectations of modern development teams. This positions R+V optimally to deliver new digital services faster, more securely, and more efficiently.
Jens Hoja
People Lead in ART DevSecOps Enabler, R+V Allgemeine Versicherung AG
Thanks to codecentric, we were able to consolidate our fragmented tool landscape and establish GitLab as our central DevOps platform. This has improved our reliability and significantly reduced our maintenance workload.
Jens Hoja
People Lead in ART DevSecOps Enabler, R+V Allgemeine Versicherung AG
Any questions about the project?
Are you facing similar challenges with DevOps, cloud computing, or compliance? If so, get in touch with us and find out how we can help you build a future-proof platform.
Further reference projects
Find out about other successful projects that we have completed with our clients. Perhaps you will find ideas here for a use case in your own organization.
Peter Westergerling