Abstract
DevOps based software process has become popular with the vision of an effective collaboration between the development and operations teams that continuously integrates the frequent changes. Traceability manages the artefact consistency during a software process. This paper explores the trace-link creation and visualization between software artefacts, existing tool support, quality aspects and the applicability in a DevOps environment. As the novelty of this study, we identify the challenges that limit the traceability considerations in DevOps and suggest research directions. Our methodology consists of concept identification, state-of-practice exploration and analytical review. Despite the existing related work, there is a lack of tool support for the traceability management between heterogeneous artefacts in software development with DevOps practices. Although many existing studies have low industrial relevance, a few proprietary traceability tools have shown a high relevance. The lack of evidence of the related applications indicates the need for a generalized traceability approach. Accordingly, we conclude that the software artefact traceability is maturing and applying collaboratively in the software process. This can be extended to explore features such as artefact change impact analysis, change propagation, continuous integration to improve software development in DevOps environments.
Highlights
Software system is an asset that contributes to enhance products or services
This study addressed the applications of artefact traceability in a DevOps environment, which is challenging than managing traceability in a traditional software development process
We have identified the traceability concepts, terminologies, traceability models in DevOps practice, traceability establishment techniques, visualization approaches and traceability evaluation methods
Summary
Software system is an asset that contributes to enhance products or services. Change of a software system is inevitable as the requirements are evolving over time. Considering the usage of resources, time, cost and effort, software evolution is preferred over building a new software system to manage the changes [1]. Traceability is the potential to relate artefacts considering their relationships [4][5]; a solution for artefact management. The practical use of artefact traceability in DevOps is not widely in use due to the limitations in existing traceability techniques, tools and automation capabilities. We present a survey on artefact traceability management in DevOps practice.
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