An Empirical Evaluation of the DevOps Reference Architecture for Multi-Cloud IoT-Applications

DevOps originated in the context of the agile methodology context to enable the continuous deployment and delivery of software applications in small releases. Organizations are taking a significant interest in adopting DevOps for deploying IoT applications to multi-cloud. The interest is there; however, there is no sufficient information on how to adopt DevOps to address this challenge effectively. A new DevOps reference architecture (DRA) framework has been developed to address this challenge. The DRA enables the automation of the IoT application deployment to a multi-cloud environment. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of the DRA framework. The empirical evaluation is composed of two phases: 1) Industry case study evaluation conducted at an IT organization, and 2) Industry field survey offered online to a cohort of experts in the area of software engineering. The evaluation aims to determine the applicability and novelty of the DRA framework mainly. The evaluation results indicate that the DRA is fit for its intended purpose and is expected to help both researchers and practitioners to architect and implement DevOps for complex IoT application deployment to multi-cloud environments.

DevOps起源于敏捷方法论的应用背景，其初衷是支持软件应用以小批量发布的模式实现持续部署与交付。诸多企业对采用DevOps将物联网（IoT）应用部署至多云环境展现出浓厚兴趣。尽管企业对此关注度颇高，但目前尚无充分资料可指导如何有效采用DevOps来应对这一部署挑战。为此，研究者开发了一款全新的DevOps参考架构（DRA）框架以解决上述挑战。该DRA框架可实现将IoT应用部署至多云环境的自动化流程。本文针对该DRA框架开展了实证评估，本次实证评估分为两个阶段：1）在某IT机构开展的行业案例研究评估；2）面向软件工程领域专家群体在线开展的行业实地调研。本次评估的核心目标在于验证该DRA框架的适用性与创新性。评估结果显示，该DRA框架契合其预设用途，有望助力研究者与行业从业者为复杂IoT应用的多云环境部署搭建并实施DevOps方案。