this talk introduces our preliminary quasi-ethnographical research over DevOps processes and tools for the purpose of end-to-end optimised DevOps engineering. Our results are encouraging and show the synergy between software performance notations and DevOps.

1. DICE Horizon 2020 Project
Grant Agreement no. 644869
http://www.dice-h2020.eu Funded by the Horizon 2020
Framework Programme of the European Union
DevOps Performance Engineering:
A Quasi-Ethnographical Study
Giuseppe Vergori*, Damian A. Tamburri*,
Diego Perez-Palacin+, Raffaela Mirandola*
*Politecnico di Milano
+Universidad de Zaragoza

2. QUDOS 2017
Roadmap
1. DevOps in pills and research problem
2. Research challenges and approach
3. Research Playground: The Phoenix Project
4. Results: 13 Processes in DevOps to be analysed
5. Conclusions and Research Agenda
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3. DevOps in pills!
QUDOS 2017 - 3 -©DICE 4/29/2017

4. DevOps in pills!
QUDOS 2017 - 4 -
SPE has focused mostly in analyzing
products and at self-contained phases
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5. DevOps in pills!
QUDOS 2017 - 5 -
SPE has focused mostly in analyzing
products and at self-contained phases
Can SPE span the entire DevOps process? To what degree? how/where?...
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6. QUDOS 2017
Research Problem
o SPE, typically product-scoped discipline…
o Can we enlarge its scope? E.g., to encompass:
oTasks
oPeople
oOrganizational structure
oMultiple phases
oMultiple views
o…
6©DICE 4/29/2017

7. QUDOS 2017
Research Problem
o SPE, typically product-scoped discipline…
o Can we enlarge its scope? E.g., to encompass:
oTasks
oPeople
oOrganizational structure
oMultiple phases
oMultiple views
o…
7©DICE 4/29/2017

8. QUDOS 2017
Research Problem
o SPE, typically product-scoped discipline…
o Can we enlarge its scope? E.g., to encompass:
oTasks
oPeople
oOrganizational structure
oMultiple phases
oMultiple views
o…
8©DICE 4/29/2017

9. QUDOS 2017
Research Problem
o SPE, typically product-scoped discipline…
o Can we enlarge its scope? E.g., to encompass:
oTasks
oPeople
oOrganizational structure
oMultiple phases
oMultiple views
o…
9©DICE 4/29/2017

10. QUDOS 2017
Research Challenges
o RQ1: can model-based SPE support DevOps
processes? If so, how?
 Performance Metrics Matching
o RQ2: what variables and processes should be
modeled?
 Input Information Matching
10©DICE 4/29/2017
This is what we mean with DevOps Performance Engineering: “SPE applied
to entire Dev- -Ops Organisational Structure and Community’s Socio-
Technical Processes”

11. QUDOS 2017
Research Approach
o What are we looking for?
o Typical DevOps Processes
o Typical DevOps roles and variables
11©DICE 4/29/2017
Exploratory Industrial Research:
1. Case-study;
2. Ethnomethodological Study;
3. …

12. QUDOS 2017
Research Approach
o What are we looking for?
o Typical DevOps Processes
o Typical DevOps roles and variables
12©DICE 4/29/2017
Exploratory Industrial Research:
1. Case-study;
2. Ethnomethodological Study;
3. …
The Phoenix
Project!

13. QUDOS 2017
The Phoenix Project
Insights and ethnographical
reference into the “three
ways”:
1. FTL Dev-to-Ops;
2. Continuous Feedback;
3. Fine-grained Risks management &
trouble-shooting;
13©DICE 4/29/2017
• 32 People Involved
• Big Product
• Continuous Everything
• Plenty of DevOps
processes
• Large Timeline
• …

14. QUDOS 2017
Results Summary
o 13 interlinked organisational processes (e.g.,
increment planning, task allocation, risk analysis
& prioritization) ;
o 6 new roles (e.g., continuous architect);
o SPE may play a role in supporting all of them
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15. QUDOS 2017
Results (cont’d)
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Resource Mapping & Task Allocation

16. QUDOS 2017
Results (cont’d)
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17. QUDOS 2017
Results (cont’d)
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Feedback Loop Bottleneck Analysis

18. Results (cont’d)
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19. QUDOS 2017
Imagine…
o … What if you could populate those PNs, QNs, …
with quantities? You could:
o Compute best fit task-to-skill allocation suggestions;
o Test an organizational structure’s “performance”;
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20. QUDOS 2017
What’s Missing
o Quantities!
o Velocity, e.g., task arrival rates, …
o People, e.g., skill-descriptors and their “weight”, …
o Structure, e.g., quantifiers for organisational
characteristics
o …
20©DICE 4/29/2017

21. QUDOS 2017
Conclusions & Research Agenda
o SPE & DevOps organisational structure  Synergy!
o There’s plenty to do with SPE:
o CH1: Modelling concurrency of people, skills, processes, … ;
o CH2: jointly analyzing complex processes, products, people;
o …
o Ref. Work, e.g., Joel Spolsky’s Evidence-Based Scheduling;
o We’ll try the following:
o Proceed with Performance metrics & input information
matching;
o Multi-View Modelling of DevOps for SPE;
o Uncertainty analysis in DevOps;
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22. QUDOS 2017
Questions?
o Thanks!
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…