How a Chinese Bank’s DevOps Platform Achieved Top‑Tier Standards

Interview Overview

On September 25, 2020, the 14th GOPS Global Operations Conference in Shenzhen announced the first batch evaluation results of the DevOps standards system and tools. The China Information Communication Research Institute evaluated Zhongyuan Bank’s DevOps platform, awarding the pipeline module an “Excellent” rating, indicating a leading domestic level.

Evaluation Details

Dr. He Baohong, director of the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute, presented the award to Zhongyuan Bank.

Q&A

Q: Please introduce your company and the evaluated project.

Hu Hao (Technical Director) explained that Zhongyuan Bank, founded in 2014, has pursued digital transformation since 2018, building an in‑house “Yuanxiao” DevOps platform that integrates requirement management, project management, continuous integration, release management, and metric statistics to support agile, lean software engineering.

Q: How do you feel about passing the DevOps standards assessment?

Hu Hao expressed great satisfaction that the platform passed the first domestic DevOps tool‑standard assessment, thanking the experts for their guidance. He highlighted the bank’s commitment to value‑driven, technically excellent digital services, and noted milestones such as automating testing and CI since 2016, and reducing pipeline development time from two weeks to two days.

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

Hu Hao emphasized that tool construction is the foundation for project management and engineering practice, enabling standardized processes, continuous improvement of delivery efficiency, and a solid base for a digital, intelligent DevOps capability.

Q: What considerations guided your participation in the standards assessment?

Hu Hao stated that the assessment serves as a comprehensive check of the platform’s maturity, helping the bank benchmark against industry best practices, improve standardization, and promote collaboration with peers.

Q: What changes has the assessment brought to the organization?

Hu Hao noted that the evaluation refined the DevOps capability system, enabling seamless collaboration across requirement, design, development, testing, and operations, and improving overall development efficiency and quality.

Q: What improvements were realized in the pipeline module?

Hu Hao described that the graphical pipeline reduced development time from two weeks to two days, lowered the entry barrier, enriched metric dimensions, and centralized processes and results.

Q: What are the distinctive features of the pipeline design?

Xue Enfeng (IT Department General Manager) explained that the pipeline balances flexibility and ease of use, standardization and custom practice, and is built on a distributed micro‑service architecture deployed in a dedicated container cloud, ensuring stability and scalability.

Q: What challenges were faced during the assessment?

Xue highlighted technical challenges such as diverse technology stacks (Java, Vue, Python, Shell, Groovy), script and container orchestration, and management challenges involving cross‑team coordination, all of which were overcome through dedicated expertise and multi‑department collaboration.

Q: What are the next steps for DevOps at the bank?

Xue outlined three plans: (1) integrate security throughout the lifecycle to build a DevSecOps ecosystem, (2) enhance the R&D efficiency measurement system for risk monitoring and data‑driven intelligent development, and (3) promote platform adoption across all development teams to support digital transformation.

Q: How do you see the future of DevOps?

Xue believes DevOps will continue to drive lean, agile, and innovative cultures, enabling rapid delivery of high‑quality digital products, while emerging cloud‑native technologies will bring new opportunities and challenges for DevOps practice.

DevOps Standards Model

The “DevOps Capability Maturity Model” was jointly developed by the China Information Communication Research Institute, the Cloud Computing Open Source Industry Alliance, the GreatOPS community, and leading internet and telecom companies. It became the world’s first international DevOps standard approved by ITU‑T in July 2020 and covers agile management, continuous delivery, technical operations, application design, security, risk management, and system/tool assessments.

Contact Information

For DevOps standard assessment inquiries, contact the China Information Communication Research Institute (Liu Kailin, phone 156‑5078‑6171, email [email protected]) or the GreatOPS community (Dong Hui, phone 185‑1511‑5139, email [email protected]).