Abstract
Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD) practices have shown several benefits for software development and operations, such as faster release cycles and early discovery of defects. For Cyber-Physical System (CPS) development, CI/CD can help achieving required goals, such as high dependability, yet it may be challenging to apply. This article empirically investigates challenges, barriers, and their mitigation occurring when applying CI/CD practices to develop CPSs in 10 organizations working in eight different domains. The study has been conducted through semi-structured interviews, by applying an open card sorting procedure together with a member-checking survey within the same organizations, and by validating the results through a further survey involving 55 professional developers. The study reveals several peculiarities in the application of CI/CD to CPSs. These include the need for (i) combining continuous and periodic builds while balancing the use of Hardware-in-the-Loop and simulators, (ii) coping with difficulties in software deployment (iii) accounting for simulators and Hardware-in-the-Loop differing in their behavior, and (vi) combining hardware/software expertise in the development team. Our findings open the road toward recommenders aimed at supporting the setting and evolution of CI/CD pipelines, as well as university curricula requiring interdisciplinarity, such as knowledge about hardware, software, and their interplay.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 73 |
Number of pages | 44 |
Journal | ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-careOtherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
Funding
H2020 COSMOS (DevOps for Complex Cyber-physical Systems), Project No. 957254-COSMOSKeywords
- Continuous Integration and Delivery
- Cyber-Physical Systems
- empirical software engineering
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Continuous Integration and Delivery practices for Cyber-Physical systems: An interview-based study
Zampetti, F. (Creator), Tamburri, D. A. (Creator), Panichella, S. (Creator), Panichella, A. (Creator), Di Penta, M. (Creator) & Canfora, G. (Creator), Zenodo, 8 Mar 2022
Dataset/Software: Dataset