Understanding the DevOps Maturity Model: Standards, Assessment, and Benefits

DevOps has rapidly evolved from concept to practice, fostering communication, collaboration, and integration among development, operations, and testing, delivering significant benefits and reshaping the software world.

The "DevOps Capability Maturity Model" series, led by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) together with industry partners, defines eight sections covering overall architecture, agile development management, continuous delivery, technical operations, application design, security & risk management, assessment methods, and system and tool technical requirements.

01 Continuous Delivery

Continuous Delivery is the ability to safely, quickly, and high‑quality deliver changes (features, bug fixes, configurations, experiments) to production or users. Graded technical requirements include configuration management, build & continuous integration, test management, deployment & release management, environment management, data management, and metrics & feedback. Over 30 enterprises from various sectors have participated in the assessment.

02 Technical Operations

Technical Operations focuses on delivering stable, secure, and efficient services centered on business, emphasizing not only stability, safety, and reliability but also experience, efficiency, and effectiveness.

03 Security & Risk Management (DevSecOps)

DevSecOps integrates security throughout all stages, enabling close collaboration among development, security, and operations. It controls general risks, development‑process risks, delivery‑process risks, and operation‑process risks, helping enterprises improve IT efficiency while keeping security risks under control.

04 System and Tool Technical Requirements

This part provides guidance for implementing end‑to‑end toolchains across the software delivery lifecycle, covering project & development management, application design & development, continuous delivery, test management, automated testing, and technical operations. Assessments for these areas have officially started.

DevOps Standard Assessment

The DevOps Capability Maturity Assessment helps enterprises improve IT efficiency by unifying requirements, development, testing, deployment, and operations, achieving agile development, continuous delivery, and seamless application operation while maintaining stability and rapid high‑quality delivery.

Assessments are conducted by a panel of 3‑5 experts from CAICT and certified DevOps assessors, followed by a review panel of experts from evaluated enterprises.

Registration runs from now until February 10 (excluding public holidays). Assessment period is February 25 to mid‑April, with results expected in May 2021. Enterprises may apply for individual parts of the model.

Contact for assessment: CAICT – Liu Kailing (Phone: 15650786171, Email: [email protected]); GreatOps Community – Yang Donghui (Phone: 18515115139, Email: [email protected]).