DevOps in Practice -- A preliminary Analysis of two Multinational Companies

DevOps is a cultural movement that aims the collaboration of all the stakeholders involved in the development, deployment and operation of soft-ware to deliver a quality product or service in the shortest possible time. DevOps is relatively recent, and companies have developed their DevOps prac-tices largely from scratch. Our research aims to conduct an analysis on practic-ing DevOps in +20 software-intensive companies to provide patterns of DevOps practices and identify their benefits and barriers. This paper presents the preliminary analysis of an exploratory case study based on the interviews to relevant stakeholders of two (multinational) companies. The results show the benefits (software delivery performance) and barriers that these companies are dealing with, as well as DevOps team topology they approached during their DevOps transformation. This study aims to help practitioners and researchers to better understand DevOps transformations and the contexts where the practices worked. This, hopefully, will contribute to strengthening the evidence regarding DevOps and supporting practitioners in making better informed decisions about the return of investment when adopting DevOps.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, conferenc

DevOps and information technology service management: A problem management case study

The use of DevOps is a predominant attribute of businesses engaged in the development and maintenance of Information Technology systems. Although literature exploring DevOps practices has expanded, there is still much unexplored territory on its operational ramifications. This is particularly observed when considering their potential impact on ITSM frameworks such as ITIL, which governs Operations. This research aims to establish how DevOps principles and practices can be applied to Problem Management, a core Service Management process. Specifically, it explores which DevOps practices may be used throughout the Problem lifecycle, as well as benefits which may result from them. An exploratory case study was carried out with the participation of Problem Managers operating in a DevOps environment. Three data collection methods were applied: Semi structured interviews, in which participants described their experience and insight in relation to DevOps and Problem Management; documental analysis and observation, where processes and workflows were examined; and a focus group exercise in which study outcomes were discussed and systematized. This research indicates that DevOps practices have varying degrees of significance for a Problem Management process. Practices associated with continuous planning and collaboration are prone to having greater significance in a Problem lifecycle, with the potential of enabling benefits such as quicker Problem identification, higher quality Root Cause Analysis, and improved resolution times. The novelty of insight gathered in this study benefits both academics, through its contribution to an expanding body of knowledge, and professionals, considering the practical and applicable nature of findings. Future work is also presented.A utilização de metodologias DevOps é hoje uma característica predominante de organizações envolvidas no desenvolvimento e manutenção de sistemas de Tecnologia e Informação. Apesar da crescente produção de literatura a examinar práticas DevOps, existe muito território por explorar referente às suas ramificações a nível operacional. Isto é particularmente notável quando se consideram potenciais interações com frameworks de ITSM como o ITIL, que governam Operações. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo estabelecer quais princípios e práticas DevOps podem ser aplicadas na Gestão de Problemas, um processo central para a Gestão de Serviços. Especificamente, exploramos quais práticas DevOps podem ser utilizadas ao longo do ciclo de vida de um Problema, tal como que benefícios poderão resultar da sua aplicação. Um caso de estudo exploratório foi realizado com a participação de Gestores de Problemas a operar num ambiente DevOps. Três métodos de recolha de dados foram aplicados: Entrevistas semiestruturadas, onde participantes descreveram a sua experiência e conhecimento em relação a DevOps e Gestão de Problemas; análise documental e observação, onde processos operacionais foram examinados; e uma discussão em grupo onde resultados do estudo foram discutidos e sistematizados. Esta investigação indica que práticas DevOps tem variados níveis de significância para um processo de Gestão de Problemas. Práticas associadas ao planeamento contínuo e colaboração tendem a ter maior significância no ciclo de vida de um Problema, com potencial para gerar benefícios como a mais rápida identificação de Problemas, maior qualidade na análise de causa, e melhorias nos tempos de resolução. As conclusões apresentadas neste estudo trazem benefícios tanto para académicos, expandindo o corpo de conhecimento disponível sobre o tema, como para profissionais, considerando a sua natureza prática e aplicável. Direções para trabalho futuro são também apresentadas

Overcoming cultural barriers to being agile in distributed teams

Context: Agile methods in offshored projects have become increasingly popular. Yet, many companies have found that the use of agile methods in coordination with companies located outside the regions of early agile adopters remains challenging. India has received particular attention as the leading destination of offshoring contracts due to significant cultural differences between sides of such contracts. Alarming differences are primarily rooted in the hierarchical business culture of Indian organizations and related command-and-control management behavior styles. Objective: In this study, we attempt to understand whether cultural barriers persist in distributed projects in which Indian engineers work with a more empowering Swedish management, and if so, how to overcome them. The present work is an invited extension of a conference paper. Method: We performed a multiple-case study in a mature agile company located in Sweden and a more hierarchical Indian vendor. We collected data from five group interviews with a total of 34 participants and five workshops with 96 participants in five distributed DevOps teams, including 36 Indian members, whose preferred behavior in different situations we surveyed. Results: We identified twelve cultural barriers, six of which were classified as impediments to agile software development practices, and report on the manifestation of these barriers in five DevOps teams. Finally, we put forward recommendations to overcome the identified barriers and emphasize the importance of cultural training, especially when onboarding new team members. Conclusions: Our findings confirm previously reported behaviors rooted in cultural differences that impede the adoption of agile approaches in offshore collaborations, and identify new barriers not previously reported. In contrast to the existing opinion that cultural characteristics are rigid and unchanging, we found that some barriers present at the beginning of the studied collaboration disappeared over time. Many offshore members reported behaving similarly to their onshore colleagues.acceptedVersio

Why and How do Large-scale Organizations Operationalize DevOps

An essential part of organizational efforts is to provide products to customers. To sustain competitive positions on existing markets, and to expand into new markets, firms utilize and continuously optimize approaches to efficiently provide effective products. Meanwhile, applying agile practices is a commoditized way for organizations to better adapt to changes during the development of their products. For bringing products to customers, more than their development is required. Typically, multiple organizational functions, all with individual goals and practices, are included in the development and delivery of products. This is often associated with friction points between those functions, and hinders the optimization of effectiveness and efficiency in providing products to customers. In retrospective, not all firms were able to recalibrate themselves and find back to former success after they had once missed to (again) innovate by timely addressing changes on their existing markets, discovering unmet or changed customer needs, and providing new products that bring together emerging technology with evolving customer demands. This potential threat now appears to be omnipresent with the ongoing proliferation of digitalization through the practical world of all of us. The emerging phenomenon of DevOps, a portmanteau word of “development” and “operations”, describes approaches to streamline development and delivery of products across organizational functions, to efficiently provide effective products, and to enable organizational digitalization efforts. This dissertation sheds light on reasoning, configurational factors, and dynamics behind DevOps implementations in large-scale. The composition of four independent yet interrelated scientific papers, the cornerstones of this dissertation, answers why and how large-scale organizations operationalize DevOps. In sum, this dissertation adds systematic and foundational knowledge, presents new applications and nuanced concretizations of scientific empiric approaches, connects allied but distinct research communities, and provides guidance for practitioners acting in this timely, relevant and interesting domain

Refining a Software System Deployment Process Model: A Case Study

Software system deployment describes the activities associated with ensuring that a software system is available for its end users. Every company, regardless of its size, requires an efficient and effective software system deployment process to ensure the customer will accept the system software successfully. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often operate on limited resources and with strict time constraints, and need to improve their processes. For this reason, the existing proposals for deployment processes are not usually useful for SMEs. This fact led us to propose DepProMod (Deployment Process Model) to help SMEs to execute the deployment process of software systems in a systematized and controlled manner. The initial version of DepProMod has subprocesses, activities and tasks defined in addition to a capabilitylevel architecture which allow its implementation in a step-by-step manner. This paper presents the results of a case study we carried out in order to examine the feasibility of the implementation of the initial version of DepProMod in a real environment with the purpose of refining it (if necessary) and completing it. We worked with the deployment process documentation of the “Company creation” module of a management system of advertising agencies for Latin America, in a software development SME in Argentina, to analyze the information requirements of the deployment procesgs and thus move towards the design of templates. In addition, a set of good practice recommendations was designed, not only for the deployment process but also for the rest of the company's software processes.Workshop: WIS - Ingeniería de SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

An Analysis of Multi-domain Command and Control and the Development of Software Solutions through DevOps Toolsets and Practices

Multi-Domain Command and Control (MDC2) is the exercise of command and control over forces in multiple operational domains (namely air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace) in order to produce synergistic effects in the battlespace, and enhancing this capability has become a major focus area for the United States Air Force (USAF). In order to meet demands for MDC2 software, solutions need to be acquired and/or developed in a timely manner, information technology infrastructure needs to be adaptable to new software requirements, and user feedback needs to drive iterative updates to fielded software. In commercial organizations, agile software development methodologies and concepts such as DevOps have been implemented to meet these demands. However, the USAF has been slow to adopt modern agile software development concepts such as DevOps in favor of traditional software development lifecycles and large contracts that can go nearly a decade without any value being released to the users. This work explores MDC2 software use cases and aims to show that MDC2 software can be successfully developed using modern agile software development practices in a timely manner

Refinamiento de un modelo de proceso de despliegue de sistemas de software a través de estudios empíricos

Software system deployment describes the activities associated with ensuring that a software system is available for its end users. Every company, regardless of its size, requires an efficient and effective software system deployment process to ensure the customer will accept the system software successfully. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often operate on limited resources and with strict time constraints and need to improve their processes. For this reason, the existing proposals for deployment processes are not usually useful for SMEs. This fact led us to propose DepProMod (Deployment Process Model) to help SMEs to execute the deployment process of software systems in a systematized and controlled manner. The initial version of DepProMod has subprocesses, activities and tasks defined in addition to a capabilitylevel architecture which allow its implementation in a step-by-step manner, thus adapting to SMEs with different needs and resources. This paper presents the results of two empirical studies carried out to obtain feedback on the model so as to refine it and complete it. Specifically, a case study from an Argentinian level 1 Medium-size software development SME (approximately 55 employees) and the interviews held with two professionals from the software industry are presented. In summary, both empirical studies allowed us to modify, unify and eliminate elements in the model.El despliegue de sistemas de software describe las actividades asociadas para asegurar que un sistema de software esté disponible para sus usuarios finales. Cada empresa, independientemente de su tamaño, requiere un proceso de despliegue de sistemas de software eficiente y efectivo para garantizar que el cliente acepte el sistema de software con éxito. Las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PyMES) a menudo operan con recursos limitados y con estrictas limitaciones de tiempo, y necesitan mejorar sus procesos. Por este motivo, las propuestas existentes de procesos de despliegue no suelen ser de utilidad para las PyMES. Este hecho nos llevó a proponer DepProMod (Modelo de Proceso de Despliegue) para ayudar a las PyMES a ejecutar el proceso de despliegue de sistemas de software de manera sistematizada y controlada. La versión preliminar de DepProMod cuenta con subprocesos, actividades y tareas definidas además de una arquitectura de niveles capacidad que permite su aplicación de manera escalonada, adaptándose así a pymes con diferentes necesidades y recursos. Este artículo presenta los resultados de dos estudios empíricos realizados para obtener retroalimentación del modelo con el fin de refinarlo y completarlo. Específicamente, se presenta un estudio de caso de una PYME desarrolladora de software, mediana de tramo 1 (aproximadamente 55 empleados) de Argentina y las entrevistas realizadas a dos profesionales de la industria del software. En resumen, ambos estudios empíricos nos permitieron modificar, unificar y eliminar elementos en el modelo.Facultad de Informátic

Managing and Making Sense of Data to Drive Digital Transformation: A Case Study

We explore how organizations manage and make sense of data collaboratively to drive digital transformation. We present the results of an in-depth case study of a financial organization that used Data Operations (DataOps) - a collaborative data management practice to transform its digital-first offering initiative and thereby redefining its value proposition. Drawing on sensemaking theory, we develop a process model that explains how organizations use DataOps to perceive cues through data democratization, extract plausible and comprehensive insights from data through data storytelling to make interpretations, and leverage data products to take actions that drive data-driven digital transformation. Our findings have implications for data-driven digital transformation as we show how DataOps constitutes a new class of data management practices that enable collaboration between data managers and data consumers and allow organizations to make evidence-based decisions to drive their digital transformation