Monitoring Continuous Integration Practices in Industry: A Case Study

Abstract

In this paper, we study the benefits and challenges of monitoring Continuous Integration (CI) practices in software development. Our aim is to evaluate the impact of monitoring seven CI practices in industry using three organizations in Brazil as case studies. We developed a tool for monitoring CI practices and conducted a multiple case study, applying a mixed-methods strategy. We combined surveys, interviews, log data, and repositories data from software projects and their CI services.We gauged the organization's interest in monitoring CI practices. The act of monitoring CI provided an overview of the organizational state of practice in terms of CI, motivated further improvement of CI practices, increased perceived quality of software, and improved project communication. We recommend that companies adopt the practice monitoring of CI practices and that CI services integrate monitoring functionalities into their dashboards.