Applying Model-Driven Engineering to Stimulate the Adoption of DevOps Processes in Small and Medium-Sized Development Organizations

Abstract

Microservice architecture (MSA) denotes an increasingly popular architectural style in which business capabilities are wrapped into autonomously developable and deployable software components called microservices. Microservice applications are developed by multiple DevOps teams each owning one or more services. In this article, we explore the state of how DevOps teams in small and medium-sized organizations (SMOs) cope with MSA and how they can be supported. We show through a secondary analysis of an exploratory interview study comprising six cases, that the organizational and technological complexity resulting from MSA poses particular challenges for small and medium-sized organizations (SMOs). We apply model-driven engineering to address these challenges. As results of the second analysis, we identify the challenge areas of building and maintaining a common architectural understanding, and dealing with deployment technologies. To support DevOps teams of SMOs in coping with these challenges, we present a model-driven workflow based on LEMMA—the Language Ecosystem for Modeling Microservice Architecture. To implement the workflow, we extend LEMMA with the functionality to (i) generate models from API documentation; (ii) reference remote models owned by other teams; (iii) generate deployment specifications; and (iv) generate a visual representation of the overall architecture. We validate the model-driven workflow and our extensions to LEMMA through a case study showing that the added functionality to LEMMA can bring efficiency gains for DevOps teams. To develop best practices for applying our workflow to maximize efficiency in SMOs, we plan to conduct more empirical research in the field in the future.

Developing Microservice-Based Applications Using the Silvera Domain-Specific Language

“…MAGMA [39], AjiL [40], TheArchitect [41], Microbuilder [42], JHipster (JHipsterhttps://www.jhipster.tech/jdl/ (accessed on 14 February 2021)), LEMMA [43], and Jolie [44] are currently available tools for describing distributed systems based on microservices. The main goal of these tools is to accelerate the development of microservices.…”

“…LEMMA (Language Ecosystem for Modeling Microservice Architecture) is a set of Eclipse-based modeling languages and model transformations for developing MSA [43]. These languages provide different modeling viewpoints for different roles in a microservice development team [45].…”

Special Issue on New Paradigms of Software Production and Deployment

“…This Topical Issue [ 4 ] contains the following papers, accepted after careful peer-reviewing: Applying Model-Driven Engineering to Stimulate the Adoption of DevOps Processes in Small and Medium-Sized Development Organizations , by [ 9 ]: in this paper, authors report the challenges that small and medium-size companies face with implementing microservices. Authors propose a model-driven workflow to cope with these challenges, which is illustrated and validated via an open-source case study.…”

“…-Applying Model-Driven Engineering to Stimulate the Adoption of DevOps Processes in Small and Medium-Sized Development Organizations, by [9]: in this paper, authors report the challenges that small and mediumsize companies face with implementing microservices. This Topical Issue promotes studies that fall into the context of DevOps and which are based on clear and solid evidence.…”

Model-Driven Generation of Microservice Interfaces: From LEMMA Domain Models to Jolie APIs

“…Jolie's abstractions have been found to offer a productivity boost in industry [10]. LEMMA provides linguistic support for the application of concepts from Domain-Driven Design [6,21], and has been validated in real-world use cases [25,22].…”