FAW‑Volkswagen’s Dual DevOps Certification: Driving Digital Transformation

On May 29, 2024, China’s Central Cyberspace Administration, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Information Standard Construction Action Plan (2024‑2027)" to promote the internationalization of information standards, encouraging deep participation in ISO, IEC, ITU and other bodies and aligning national standards with international benchmarks.

China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) launched a synchronized assessment based on the ITU DevOps international standard and the domestic DevOps standard, enabling mutual recognition of international and domestic standards. This assessment aligns with the action plan and meets the needs of enterprises.

At the 2024 Third XOps Industry Innovation Development Forum in Beijing on July 25, CAICT announced the dual‑certificate assessment results for FAW‑Volkswagen. The company’s two projects – the "R&D Efficiency Platform" and the "Integrated Operations Platform" – passed the ITU DevOps international standard assessment and the domestic DevOps system‑and‑tool standard (excellent level), demonstrating leading domestic capabilities.

Assessment Unit: China Academy of Information and Communications Technology

Award Presentation: Deputy Chairman and Secretary‑General of the China Communications Standardization Association, Ms. Dai Xiaohui, and Chairman of TC1, Mr. He Baohong, presented the certificates at the forum.

FAW‑Volkswagen has passed four CAICT DevOps assessments, including two continuous delivery standards and two system‑and‑tool standards.

Q&A

Q: Please introduce your company and the projects you evaluated.

FAW‑Volkswagen, a joint venture of FAW Group, Volkswagen AG, Audi AG and Volkswagen (China), operates the Audi, Volkswagen and Jetta brands. The R&D Efficiency Platform is an internally developed end‑to‑end toolchain supporting requirements, code entry, build, test, artifact management and delivery. The Integrated Operations Platform consolidates ITSM, CMDB, monitoring and automation to enable process‑driven, automated operations and support digital transformation.

Q: How does achieving the system‑and‑tool standard feel?

We appreciate CAICT’s scientific evaluation and guidance, which helped us achieve excellent‑level assessments for both platforms, reinforcing our digital transformation and continuous delivery capabilities.

Q: How important is an end‑to‑end, integrated toolchain for DevOps?

In a competitive market, rapid, high‑quality releases are essential. Our platform standardizes a one‑stop tool experience, enabling low‑cost replication across IT systems, online process planning, and real‑time progress visibility, thereby boosting delivery efficiency.

Q: What considerations led you to participate in the assessment?

Recognizing the importance of standards in our digital transformation, we joined the assessment to strengthen our foundational tools and support the company’s strategic goals.

Q: What changes resulted from the assessment?

The assessment helped us build organization‑wide platform capabilities, automate metric collection, provide unified dashboards, and transition operations from manual to automated, confirming our technical‑operations maturity.

Q: What challenges did you face during the assessment and how were they solved?

Complex functionality and tight timelines required weekly standard reviews, task tracking, and iterative optimization, ultimately meeting the assessment criteria.

Q: What are your next steps for DevOps?

We aim to achieve excellent‑level continuous delivery assessment for the R&D platform this year and to evaluate the Integrated Operations Platform’s monitoring and configuration management in the second half, further strengthening technical operations.

Q: What is your view on the future of DevOps?

DevOps will accelerate digital transformation, expand into operations and automation, and evolve with cloud computing, AI, and machine learning, leading to practices such as Platform Engineering, FinOps, BizDevOps, Observability and SRE.

Industry statistics (as of July 2024) show the number of automotive enterprises that have passed the domestic DevOps standard, with detailed counts illustrated in the chart below.

ITU DevOps international standard (ITU‑T Y.3525) was established in 2018, with participation from over 90 representatives from more than 20 countries. In 2020, the "Cloud Computing‑Requirements for Cloud Service Development and Operation Management" standard (ITU‑T Y.3525) was approved, providing a framework for cloud‑based DevOps.

The domestic DevOps standard "R&D‑Operations Integrated (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" was authored by CAICT together with leading internet, finance and telecom companies, and has been adopted by many major enterprises.

For further information or to contact CAICT regarding DevOps standard assessments, refer to the contact details provided at the end of the original article.