Harmonizing DevOps Taxonomies - A Grounded Theory Study

Abstract

Context: DevOps responds to the growing need of companies to streamline the software development process and, thus, have experienced a widespread adoption in the past few years. However, successful adoption of DevOps requires companies to address important cultural and organizational changes. Understanding the organizational structure and characteristics of teams adopting DevOps is key, and comprehending the existing theories and representations of team taxonomies is critical to guide companies in a more systematic and structured DevOps adoption process. Objective: This paper presents empirical research on the structure of DevOps teams in software-producing organizations. The goal is to better understand the organizational structure and characteristics of teams adopting DevOps by harmonizing the existing knowledge. Method: To do this, we conducted a grounded theory study, analyzing existing studies on DevOps teams and taxonomies. Results: From the analysis, we built a substantive and analytic theory of DevOps taxonomies. The theory is substantive in that the scope of validity refers to the ten primary studies processed and analytic in that it analyzes “what is” rather than explaining causality or attempting predictive generalizations. A public repository with all the data related to the products resulting from the analysis and generation of the theory is available. Conclusions: We built a theory on DevOps taxonomies and tested whether it harmonizes the existing taxonomies, i.e., whether our theory can instantiate the others. This is the first step to define which taxonomies are best suited to approach DevOps culture and practices according to the companies’ objectives and capabilities.

Secure Change Management Process: On the Effectiveness of DevSecOps

“…An extensive analysis of profile papers and publications by authors R. G. Lennon [50], S. R. Goniwada [51], J. Faustino [52], M. A. Shameem [53], W. R. Nichols [54], K. A. Rassmann [55], J. Díaz [56], allows us to identify the benefits of implementing DevSecOps tools in traditional software production processes (Figure 12): -improvement of the software product quality at the customer (higher customer value), due to the optimization of the processes of andate and software kernel updates, taking into account the increase of security qualities; -reduced time spent on cybersecurity testing procedures (reduced time for security checks), due to the high level of automation of test operations in the DevSecOps system; Informational and analytical review of publications by M. A. Akbar [58], T. Scanlon [59], C. W. Carol Woody [60], D. W. Hallock [61], K. Siau [62] regarding the hindering reasons in the full implementation of DevSecOps organizational and management system in software-digital production processes, points out that although DevSecOps offers a new methodology to solve problems between DevOps and cybersecurity, and makes security a task for everyone in the development process, transition from DevOps to DevSecOps is not easy and requires a culture or mindset change, new management, work processes and process must be established, and new technology must be adopted. Here, the challenge of implementing DevSecOps breaks down into two major challenges: -technical problem of DevSecOps implementation; -the corporate-developer problem of DevSecOps implementation.…”