DevOps Adoption: Insights from a Large European Telco

Abstract

Information technology professionals often refer to DevOps as a cultural or professional movement that presents a new 
approach to software delivery through collaboration between the development (Dev) and the operations (Ops) teams. It is 
an expanding phenomenon, but its adoption in organizations is still at an embryonic stage, requiring research to clarify the 
benefits, challenges, and barriers to its adoption. With this objective in mind, it was carried out an in-depth study in a large 
telecommunications (Telco) company that decided to undertake a process of migration to DevOps. The case study involved 
several stakeholders and covers the DevOps’ ex-ante, adoption, and ex-post. Several important facets of DevOps are addressed 
in this paper, including: 1) practices (continuous delivery and continuous integration were considered the most relevant in the 
company), 2) benefits (from benefits stand out the improvement in the software quality and faster delivery, with fewer produc
tion failures), 3) barriers (the most significant obstacle was the resistance to change, in several dimensions), 4) success factors 
(the main influencing factors were top management support, implementation process and applied technology); and 5) others 
aspects (e.g., motivations and tools). Results provide academics and professionals with an integrated view of the condi- tions 
of DevOps adoption and its outcomes within organizations.