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Achieving traceability in large scale continuous integration and delivery deployment, usage and validation of the eiffel framework

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Abstract

The importance of traceability in software development has long been recognized, not only for reasons of legality and certification, but also to enable the development itself. At the same time, organizations are known to struggle to live up to traceability requirements, and there is an identified lack of studies on traceability practices in the industry, not least in the area of tooling and infrastructure. This paper presents, investigates and discusses Eiffel, an industry developed solution designed to provide real time traceability in continuous integration and delivery. The traceability needs of industry professionals are also investigated through interviews, providing context to that solution. It is then validated through further interviews, a comparison with previous traceability methods and a review of literature. It is found to address the identified traceability needs and found in some cases to reduce traceability data acquisition times from days to minutes, while at the same time alternatives offering comparable functionality are lacking. In this work, traceability is shown not only to be an important concern to engineers, but also regarded as a prerequisite to successful large scale continuous integration and delivery. At the same time, promising developments in technical infrastructure are documented and clear differences in traceability mindset between separate industry projects is revealed.

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Notes

  1. https://github.com/Ericsson/eiffel

  2. https://github.com/Ericsson/eiffel

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Acknowledgments

We wish to extend our sincere gratitude to the insightful, generous and helpful engineers at Ericsson AB and AB Volvo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ericsson AB, Datalinjen 3, Linköping, Sweden

    Daniel Ståhl & Kristofer Hallén

  2. Chalmers University of Technology, Lindholmspiren 5, Göteborg, Sweden

    Jan Bosch

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  1. Daniel Ståhl
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  2. Kristofer Hallén
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  3. Jan Bosch
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Correspondence to Daniel Ståhl.

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Communicated by: Patrick Mäder, Rocco Oliveto and Andrian Marcus

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Ståhl, D., Hallén, K. & Bosch, J. Achieving traceability in large scale continuous integration and delivery deployment, usage and validation of the eiffel framework. Empir Software Eng 22, 967–995 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9457-1

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