How a Leading Securities Firm Achieved Top‑Tier DevOps Maturity and Boosted Efficiency

Large enterprises have found that standardization and tooling are critical for success. The DevOps standards and a standards‑based continuous delivery pipeline can markedly improve quality, efficiency, safety, and agility, thereby strengthening market competitiveness.

On July 18, 2023, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) hosted the 2023 XOps Industry Innovation Development Forum in Beijing. The forum highlighted the theme “Quality‑Efficiency Integration, Stable Progress, Intelligent Future” and announced the latest batch of DevOps/AIOps standards assessment results.

Shenwan Hongyuan Securities participated with its “Business Middle‑Platform” project, successfully passing the CAICT "Research‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" at Continuous Delivery Level 3, indicating a leading domestic capability. The company also passed the security and risk management (DevSecOps) security development and delivery modules.

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

A (Xie Chen, CIO): Shenwan Hongyuan Securities was formed by merging China’s first joint‑stock securities firm and the first listed securities firm. It operates nationwide with subsidiaries abroad. The Business Middle‑Platform, a micro‑service‑based self‑developed system launched in 2018, now serves over 100 systems, provides 3,000+ APIs, and handles 10 million daily visits, driving cost reduction and digital transformation.

Q: How did you feel after achieving Level 3 Continuous Delivery?

A: We are delighted that all evaluation indicators reached leading levels, confirming the strength of our agile delivery capabilities and the solid foundation of our DevOps digital platform for supporting the company’s transformation.

Q: Why did you decide to join the DevOps standards assessment?

A: Since 2021 we have undertaken three phases of agile transformation and DevOps platform construction. To align with our overall digital transformation roadmap, we adopted the industry‑standard maturity model to provide measurable references for continuous improvement.

Q: What benefits has the DevOps assessment brought to your organization?

A: The assessment elevated our engineering capabilities, established a platform with core functions, and set the stage for scaling internal standards. It shortened delivery cycles, increased deployment frequency, streamlined production processes, and created a closed loop of feature‑to‑feedback experimentation, enhancing quality and team performance.

Q: How smooth was the assessment process and what challenges did you face?

A (Kang Lan, Deputy GM): The process was overall smooth, though we faced tight schedules and high demand for the core product team. We integrated improvement tasks into regular iterations, worked overtime, and received strong leadership support to prioritize and complete the work.

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

A: DevOps is essential for digital transformation in finance, enabling end‑to‑end integration and visualization of development, testing, and operations. It will continue evolving, but its core principles will remain integral to industry transformation.

Q: Can you share concrete metrics that reflect the project’s improvements?

A (Wang Jiahua, Quality Control Head): After adopting DevOps standards, we achieved: • Unit‑test coverage increased from 10 % to >50 % (incremental >70 %). • Interface‑automation coverage rose from 60 % to 100 % with success >95 %. • Average defect‑close time dropped from 20 days to 6.5 days. • Critical vulnerabilities reduced from 42 to 0. • Delivery cycle shortened from one month to about one week. • Production deployment success >95 %.

Q: What are the distinctive features of your IT system and its design?

A: To avoid siloed “silo” systems, we adopted a cloud‑native “middle‑platform” architecture built on open‑source components. Over four years, it integrated nearly 30 back‑end systems, serving 70+ applications, and now supports about 20 development teams for rapid, flexible development.

Q: What is the biggest gain from this year’s DevOps implementation and your next steps?

A: The assessment confirmed our leading DevOps capability. Going forward we will localize the CAICT standards, enhance the tool platform, expand its adoption across the company, and align with the 14th‑15th Five‑Year Plan for fintech to further boost delivery capacity.

Contact information for DevOps standard assessment inquiries is provided, along with a note that the article is republished from the CAICT Digital Governance public account.