Tools Integration Challenges Faced During DevOps Implementation

• Main Authors: Bonda, Dharma Teja, Ailuri, Vishnuvardhan Reddy
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för programvaruteknik 2021
• Subjects: DevOps; Tools; Integration; Challenges; Automation; Software Engineering; Programvaruteknik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-21826

Background: Since the conception of DevOps several tools have come into existence that eases its implementation. A variety of these tools are used to implement a standard DevOps pipeline. The process of selection of these tools and the interactions between them is called tool integration. Objectives: This thesis aims to address and solve the various tool integration challenges faced during the DevOps implementation. The primary goal is to identify the tool integration challenges that occur while implementing a standard DevOps pipeline with the help of feedback from experienced DevOps practitioners. After identifying these challenges, the possible mitigation strategies to these challenges are devised by analyzing the responses received from a large population of DevOps practitioners. Methods: Survey is chosen as the research methods for this thesis. Two data collection methods have used for implementing the survey namely interviews and survey questionnaire. Major tool integration Challenges are identified from the analyzed interview data. Using these challenges as inputs a survey questionnaire is prepared for gaining insights on occurrences of these challenges in large population of DevOps practitioners. The main aim of the survey questionnaire is to find out the mitigation strategies to these challenges by analysing the survey responses. Results: The tool integration challenges were identified by conducting semi-structured interviews with eight DevOps practitioners. Seven common challenges have been identified from the interview data using the Immersion approach. A survey questionnaire prepared by using these challenges received 79 responses in total, out of which62 are considered. Using Thematic Analysis the mitigation strategies for these challenges have been extracted from the responses of the survey.Conclusions. Most of the tool integration challenges reported by the interview participants seem to be associated with CI tools when they are integrated and used together with other DevOps tools. Most of the mitigation strategies are aimed towards the "Tool" theme among the various themes found in thematic analysis of survey data.