How China Minsheng Bank Achieved Advanced DevOps Maturity – A Deep Dive

Domestic and foreign large enterprises have shown that standardization and tool empowerment are key to success. The DevOps standards and a standards‑based continuous delivery pipeline can significantly improve quality, efficiency, safety, and agility, enhancing market competitiveness.

On October 28, 2022, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) announced the latest batch of DevOps and AIOps standards evaluation results. China Minsheng Bank’s "Centralized Operation Business Processing System" project successfully passed the CAICT’s "R&D‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" technical operation standard assessment, reaching Level 2 and representing an advanced domestic level in DevOps capabilities.

Minsheng Bank is the first nationwide joint‑stock bank to pass the CAICT DevOps technical operation standard assessment.

Evaluation Unit: China Academy of Information and Communications Technology

Assessors: Wei Kai, Deputy Director of the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute, CAICT

Q&A with Minsheng Bank’s IT Leaders

Lv Xiaoqiang (Deputy General Manager, IT Department): He expressed pride in passing the assessment, noting that it reflects CAICT’s recognition of the bank’s technical operation capabilities and highlights the team’s determination during the pandemic.

Lv Xiaoqiang: The assessment team comprised members from the centralized operation project group, application operation center, production scheduling center, system management center, and production management center, breaking knowledge silos and achieving the project goals, which embodies the core DevOps philosophy.

Lv Xiaoqiang: Future plans include using the DevOps standards to formulate technical specifications, embed them into processes and tools, and achieve scalable, systematic improvements.

Peng Zhenshan (Deputy General Manager, IT Department): He explained that the DevOps standard, jointly drafted by CAICT, major internet companies, and various industry players, was approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and internationally by ITU‑T in July 2020. It covers continuous delivery, technical operation, security, risk management, system and tools, and agile practices.

Peng Zhenshan: The bank uses the standard for self‑assessment, benchmarking, and continuous improvement.

Gong Yumian (Director, Operations Business Block): He described the centralized operation business processing system as a critical workflow support platform built on a cloud‑native architecture with micro‑frontends and micro‑services, enabling standardized, automated, intelligent, and consolidated processing of various banking operations.

The system’s architecture includes presentation, access, integration, and middle‑platform layers, developed with internal frameworks, supporting multi‑team collaboration and component sharing to boost development efficiency.

DevOps Capability Maturity Model

The "R&D‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" series standards, led by CAICT with contributions from the Cloud Computing Open Source Alliance, Efficient Operations Community, BATJ, and major financial and telecom enterprises, constitute the first comprehensive domestic DevOps series standard. The standards have been adopted by many leading enterprises in finance, telecom, and the internet.

In July 2020, the DevOps standard became the world’s first international DevOps standard approved by the United Nations‑affiliated ITU‑T. The assessment framework includes agile development management, continuous delivery, technical operation, application design, security and risk management, and system and tool components.

Other joint‑stock banks that have participated in the DevOps capability maturity model assessment are listed in the accompanying chart.