Industry Application of Continuous Integration Modeling: A Multiple-Case Study

The popular agile practice of continuous integration has become an essential part of the software development process in many companies, sometimes to the extent that delivery to customer is impossible without it. Due to this pivotal role it is an important field of research to better understand the practice: continuous integration system behavior, improvement identification and analysis of change impacts. This paper investigates the effects of modeling of such systems, by applying two continuous integration modeling techniques to four separate industry cases in three companies. These techniques are found to complement each other, and their ability to help professionals gain a better understanding of their continuous integration systems, to communicate around them and to support technical work is demonstrated. In addition, guidelines for conducting similar continuous integration modeling work are presented and feedback on the studied models provided. This work presents software professionals with demonstrably effective methods for design and analysis of continuous integration systems and thereby improving the efficacy of a vital part of their software development efforts, while supporting researchers with recommendations for and feedback on available modeling techniques.