Case Study: Intellias

Intellias x GitLab: Scaling, Automation, and a New Level of Team Collaboration

About the Client

Intellias is a global IT company with Ukrainian roots, founded in 2001 in Lviv. Today, Intellias is a trusted technology partner for leading global companies, including those from the Fortune 500 list. The company employs over 3,000 professionals worldwide and operates in 8 countries. It provides software development services, helping clients find effective solutions for their business challenges.

Project Start Date: June 2023
Project End Date: Ongoing collaboration

Challenge

As a service company, Intellias does not develop its own products but provides software development services for various clients worldwide. Most projects use the client’s infrastructure, which is why the need for DevSecOps tools had not arisen before. However, many of the company’s projects were related to the development of mapping solutions, and over time, the team noticed that a significant number of tasks were repetitive across different projects. This not only led to additional time expenses but also required substantial human resources.

To optimize these processes, the company decided to develop the Intellias Map Accelerator—a set of specialized libraries and code blocks that would help speed up the development of map compilers for various projects. However, creating such a tool required efficient code management, transparent version control, a reliable documentation storage system, and the ability to easily manage tasks within a team that was gradually expanding.

Initially, only six specialists worked on the accelerator, but as the project grew and the workload increased, the number of people involved also expanded. Students from Lviv National University also joined the project as part of their studies at the IntelliMapLab. This required a tool that could easily add new users while maintaining seamless team collaboration, avoiding chaos in code and task management. The company sought a solution that could integrate all these functions into one system, reducing the risk of errors due to tool fragmentation and ensuring uninterrupted collaboration among all participants.

Intellias faced the challenge of choosing a platform that could meet the high demands of organizing and managing complex projects while remaining scalable over time.

Solution

To address the problem of fragmented code and task management, Intellias chose the GitLab platform—an all-in-one DevSecOps solution that combines all the necessary tools for project management, team collaboration, and development process optimization. GitLab allowed Intellias to organize all stages of project work within a single system, which was critical for the successful implementation of the Intellias Map Accelerator.

Key GitLab tools and features that proved invaluable:

• Integrated code repository management system. Thanks to GitLab, the Intellias team was able to organize centralized storage for all code, libraries, and components of the Map Accelerator. GitLab supports Git repositories, allowing the team to safely and effectively manage code versions, track changes, and monitor each developer’s commits, ensuring transparency in the development process.
• Issue Tracker. This tool became indispensable for effective task management and tracking their completion. GitLab Issue Tracker allowed Intellias to create and monitor progress on tasks, automate task creation processes for different team members, and ensure clear communication between project participants.
• CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment). Integration with CI/CD tools was especially important for fast testing and the release of new versions of the accelerator. By using GitLab CI/CD, the team could configure automatic builds, testing, and code deployment, significantly reducing the time for releasing updates and improving the quality of the final project.
• Wiki for documentation. GitLab enabled Intellias to create a centralized place for storing all project documentation. Using the built-in Wiki feature, the team could quickly update documentation and maintain up-to-date information for all project participants. This functionality not only simplified work on complex technical tasks but also made the process of onboarding new team members easier, providing them with quick access to all necessary materials.
• Team collaboration and user onboarding. One of GitLab’s greatest advantages for Intellias was its ease of team scaling. Thanks to a flexible licensing system and the ability to quickly add new users, the platform allowed the company to adapt the project efficiently to new challenges and ensure smooth collaboration among all team members.

Outcome

As a result, GitLab provided Intellias with full control over all aspects of development, from code management to task planning and process automation. By utilizing all these features in one place, Intellias was able to simplify project work and shorten task completion times through efficient team collaboration, progress tracking, and rapid code iterations. This also minimized risks associated with human error and ensured the continuous evolution of the project.

The integration of GitLab significantly improved the team’s productivity and made the development process more predictable, providing all the necessary tools to maintain high work quality while reducing the time to release new features for the accelerator.

Cloudfresh’s Role

Cloudfresh played a key role in ensuring quick access to GitLab, helping Intellias promptly acquire licenses and scale the number of users as needed. Thanks to Cloudfresh’s support, the process of team scaling was seamless, and the implementation of GitLab was as smooth as possible.