DevOps model in practice: Applying a novel reference model to support and encourage the adoption of DevOps in a software development company as case study

Abstract

DevOps has emerged as an approach to help organizations automate, cost optimization, increase profitability, improve the stability of the software development process and the responsiveness of organizations, and create a more agile development and release pipeline. However, its adoption, maintenance and evaluation continue to be a challenge for software organizations, due to the absence of solutions that formalize process elements in a detailed way, such as: practices, roles, artifacts, objectives, among others. This paper presents a DevOps Model, this model to support the adoption of DevOps, which provides a set of fundamental and complementary values, principles, dimensions, and practices. The practices suggest a set of items such as purpose, specific objectives and expected artifacts. The elements defined in proposed DevOps Model arise from the elements found in the studies analyzed through a systematic mapping study. Model evaluation was carried out through a software development company as case study. The results obtained have allowed the case study company to evaluate, diagnose and identify improvement opportunities to be carried out in the processes and projects where a DevOps-based approach is used, the above in a practical, useful, and adequate way that allows this type of companies and with a low use of resources, both economic investment and time. This is how the DevOps Model could guide professionals and organizations towards a better understanding of DevOps, in addition to minimizing the subjectivity and error of its interpretation, adoption and evaluation.