Wolters Kluwer Cuts Scan Times and Costs while Improving Code Quality

Problem

Wolters Kluwer's Tax and Accounting division, operating across multiple European countries, faced critical challenges in maintaining consistent code quality and security standards.  Before SonarQube Server Enterprise, their landscape was a patchwork of varying standards, where teams operated in silos. Each team relied on a separate Community Build instance that lacked the consistency and oversight needed for their intricate ecosystem, leading to a reactive scramble where issues were often discovered far too late in the release cycle. Developers merged code into the master trunk unaware of the issues their pull requests contained, leading to release delays and increased risk. 

Specifically, they were grappling with:

• Limited Visibility & Reactive Issues: Executives lacked a clear, unified view of code quality, hindering strategic decisions. Issues were primarily detected post-merge, leading to costly rework and release delays.
• Inconsistent Quality & Test Coverage: Code quality standards varied wildly across separate teams. Additionally, test coverage was low in some areas with no enforced standards for new code. This increased risk of defects led to a slower development cycle, where greater functional and regression testing was required.
• Disparate Processes: Separate teams had independent processes for performing code reviews with no standardized approach or oversight to ensure efficiencies across team members.

Solution

Wolters Kluwer recognized that they needed more than just a tool; they needed a transformation. They turned to SonarQube Server Enterprise, a powerful platform that facilitated a cultural shift towards proactive code management. By implementing clear quality gates and mandating rigorous code reviews before merges, they empowered developers to catch issues early, shifting from a reactive to a preventative approach. Portfolio management provided executives with critical insights, and centralized test coverage reporting highlighted critical gaps.

Key changes included:

• Proactive Issue Prevention: Pull request analysis and ensuring releases met a high-quality standard enforced by quality gates in their release pipeline became standard practice, preventing issues from reaching production.
• Centralized Test Coverage Reporting: SonarQube Server enabled developers to pinpoint low-coverage areas, driving improvements and enforcing a robust 80% coverage for new code. This renewed focus on code coverage for new and existing code allowed teams to push up to nearly 95% coverage not only for new, but legacy assets.
• Unified Standards and Visibility Across Teams: Implementing a single standard for quality and security across teams ensured separate teams were meeting the same high coding standards, guaranteeing consistency from release to release.  Executive visibility across teams and projects built confidence ground up from the teams to the executive oversight.

Results

The transformation was profound. Development teams, once operating in isolation, now moved in unison, guided by clear quality standards and data-driven insights. Technical debt was brought under control, and releases became smoother and more predictable.

Measurable results included:

• Reduced Technical Debt & Improved Release Stability: Proactive prevention and enforced standards led to significant reductions in technical debt and more reliable releases.
• Enhanced Executive Oversight & Increased Test Coverage: Data-driven decisions and targeted improvements in test coverage (up to 95% in some teams) reduced the risk of regressions and defects
• Improved Code Quality & Culture: Teams consistently achieved "A" ratings in SonarQube Server, reflecting a culture of high standards and continuous improvement. Monitoring consistency across teams and projects using SonarQube Server became second nature instead of being a source of frustration.
• Increased Developer Confidence & Reduced Production Issues: Developers gained increased confidence in their lines of code, leading to higher morale and fewer production issues, ultimately enhancing customer trust.

Surprise benefit of upgrading to SonarQube Server 2025.1 LTA

Wolters Kluwer regularly updates and keeps their SonarQube Server instance current. Upon updating to the latest 2025.1 LTA release, they discovered some unexpected benefits. Their performance and automation improved after the update from significantly reduced scan times and a smaller database footprint, improving efficiency.

The outcomes included:

• Accelerated Development Cycles: Scan times for large projects shrank from 3-5 hours to a mere 6 minutes, boosting development efficiency.
• Reduced Cloud Costs: Database size was halved, from 300GB to 150GB, resulting in substantial infrastructure cost savings.

Wolters Kluwer's journey exemplifies the transformative power of SonarQube Server Enterprise, demonstrating how a proactive approach to code quality can drive significant improvements in efficiency, security, and overall business outcomes.

Conclusion

By keeping their SonarQube Server instance up to date with the latest LTA, Wolters Kluwer significantly improved their code quality and development processes with no disruption to development workflows. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in scan times, from 3-5 hours to just 6 minutes. Overall, the adoption of SonarQube Server drove measurable improvements in efficiency, code quality, and developer confidence, ultimately enhancing developer productivity and improving the development experience.

"We had a large project that was about 3 million lines of code that previously took 3-5 hours to scan. Once we updated to 2025.1, that same project dropped to a scan time of 6 minutes, and all of our other projects have even shorter scan times."