DevOps Capabilities, Practices, and Challenges: Insights from a Case Study
This provides empirical insights into DevOps practices and challenges for software development organizations, but it is incremental as it applies existing principles to a specific case.
The paper investigated factors influencing DevOps implementation through a case study in a New Zealand product development organization, finding that it increased deployment frequency from about 30 to 120 releases per month and improved communication and collaboration between development and operations teams.
DevOps is a set of principles and practices to improve collaboration between development and IT Operations. Against the backdrop of the growing adoption of DevOps in a variety of software development domains, this paper describes empirical research into factors influencing its implementation. It presents findings of an in-depth exploratory case study that explored DevOps implementation in a New Zealand product development organisation. The study involved interviewing six experienced software engineers who continuously monitored and reflected on the gradual implementation of DevOps principles and practices. For this case study the use of DevOps practices led to significant benefits, including increase in deployment frequency from about 30 releases a month to an average of 120 releases per month, as well as improved natural communication and collaboration between IT development and operations personnel. We found that the support of a number of technological enablers, such as implementing an automation pipeline and cross functional organisational structures, were critical to delivering the expected benefits of DevOps.