Case Study: Major U.S. Airline Reduces Software Upgrade Time from 4 Months to 4 Hours with Itential

Major U.S. Airline Leverages Itential to Automate Software Upgrades, Reduces Time from 4 Months to 4 Hours

Major U.S. Airline, a large U.S. carrier with more than 3,500 Cisco iOS devices, needed a faster and more scalable way to handle recurring software upgrades. Its manual approach and early Ansible-based automation efforts were too slow, with one engineer spending four months building automation for just one device type. Itential’s Automation Platform was brought in to streamline the process.

Using Itential, the airline automated the full end-to-end software upgrade workflow, including pre-checks, file storage, backups, file loading, post-checks, result validation, and ticket closure. The solution aligned with Cisco best practices and extended automation access to more teams. With Itential, the airline cut automation time from 4 months to 4 hours, lowered operational costs, and expanded participation across multiple teams.