Improving the Robustness, Efficiency, and Transparency of Continuous Integration and Delivery Pipelines

背景：现代软件以疯狂的速度开发。虽然过去的软件发布需要几个月甚至几年的时间来准备，但像Google，Uber和Facebook这样的现代软件组织每天都会发布几次。为了实现这一壮举，组织投资于软件发布管道，即，资源、基础设施和脚本，它们指定如何通过三个高级阶段处理变更集（由开发人员对代码库进行增量改进，以修复缺陷、增强软件或改进非功能性系统属性）。首先，集成阶段将变更集与中心代码库合并。其次，构建阶段协调开发工具的执行，这些工具将更新的代码库转换为一组经过测试的可交付成果。最后，部署阶段自动化过程，使软件用户可以使用测试的可交付成果集进行交互或获取。总体目标和具体目标：现代软件开发的疯狂步伐带来了软件组织必须解决的挑战。为了帮助这一努力，这项研究计划的总体目标是实现和支持智能软件发布管道的开发，维护和操作。这些改进的管道将能够快速生产高质量的版本（即，持续交付），同时为软件组织内的决策者提供额外的见解，帮助他们做出更明智的、数据驱动的决策（即，持续集成）。更具体地说，拟议研究的目标是努力开发概念，技术和原型工具，以改善软件发布管道的三个理想特征：（RO 1：鲁棒性）-提高管道信号和输出的可靠性（RO 2：效率）-减少管道维护和执行中的浪费（RO 3：透明度）-利用管道决策和数据培养意识影响：对发布管道的投资使得相对较小的Mozilla组织（Firefox网络浏览器的开发商）与微软（Edge）、谷歌（Chrome）和苹果（Safari）等软件巨头竞争。拟议的研究将为12名学生提供大规模实证分析和发布管道的实践培训。这些学生将为devops，软件发布工程和数据科学等领域的研究或私营部门职业生涯做好准备，从而提高加拿大在这些高影响力的软件工程领域的创新潜力。

Context: Modern software is developed at a frantic pace. While the software releases of the past would take several months or even years to prepare, modern software organizations like Google, Uber, and Facebook release several times daily. To achieve this feat, organizations invest in a software release pipeline, i.e., resources, infrastructure, and scripts that specify how change sets (incremental improvements to a codebase produced by its developers to repair defects, enhance the software, or improve non-functional system properties) are processed through three high-level phases. First, the integration phase merges a change set with the central codebase. Second, the build phase orchestrates the execution of development tools that transform the updated codebase into a tested set of deliverables. Finally, the deployment phase automates the procedure that makes the tested set of deliverables available for software users to interact with or acquire. Overarching Goal and Specific Objectives: The frantic pace of modern software development introduces challenges that software organizations must address. To aid in that endeavour, the overarching goal of this research program is to enable and support the development, maintenance, and operation of intelligent software release pipelines. These improved pipelines will be capable of producing high quality releases at a rapid pace (i.e., Continuous Delivery), while providing decision makers within software organizations with additional insights that will help them to make more informed, data-driven decisions (i.e., Continuous Integration). More specifically, the objectives of the proposed research strive to develop concepts, techniques, and prototype tools to improve three desirable characteristics of software release pipelines: (RO1: Robustness) - Improve the reliability of pipeline signals and outputs (RO2: Efficiency) - Reduce waste in pipeline maintenance and execution (RO3: Transparency) - Cultivate awareness using pipeline decisions and data Impact: Investment in release pipelines has allowed the relatively small Mozilla organization (the developers of the Firefox web browser) to compete with software giants like Microsoft (Edge), Google (Chrome), and Apple (Safari). The proposed research will provide 12 students with hands-on training in large-scale empirical analyses and release pipelines. These students will be well-equipped for a research or private sector career in fields like devops, software release engineering, and data science, increasing Canada's innovation potential in these high-impact areas of software engineering.