A DevOps Approach to the EA Blueprint Architectural Pattern

Abstract: In the world of software development, there is an increasing demand for software to keep up with rapid changes in its real-world context. A Resilient Digital Twin of an Organization is a type of software whose purpose is to digitally represent an organization or a component of an organization - as a Digital Twin -, and to keep doing so accurately throughout the real-world organization’s changes - a Resilient Digital Twin. An architectural pattern, called the EA Blueprint Pattern, has recently been proposed as a pattern to use for developing Resilient Digital Twins that can change together with the changes in the organization. However, software architecture is not the only factor that enables continuous change and adaptability in software. For software development teams to be able to deliver software rapidly and reliably, the software development process itself must be adapted to allow for frequent and fast changes. From this need, the Agile methodology and subsequently the set of work practises called DevOps has emerged. DevOps leverages automation and fast feedback as tools to facilitate a shorter system development life cycle and continuous delivery. The usage of DevOps is becoming increasingly popular in the software development field. It stands to reason that there is a need to ensure that the EA Blueprint Pattern is appropriate even in a DevOps context, where different tools and routines may be used than in traditional development. To complete this project, a use case of the EA Blueprint Pattern has been moved from a traditionally developed and deployed setting to a DevOps setting that includes essential DevOps tools such as Infrastructure as Code, a cloud environment, and a CI/CD pipeline that enables automatic deployment and therefore a shorter system development life cycle. By doing this, it can be gauged how well the EA Blueprint Pattern is adapted to a modern software development process which utilises the advantages of DevOps.