DevOps Patterns: A Rapid Review

The DevOps tool and technology landscape is large and complex. According to the CNCF Landscape, there are about 1196 Tools grouped into five categories, and 20 sub-categories. While CNCF also provides guidelines for each main category, patterns for DevOps are not covered. In this Rapid Review, we collect patterns that can be used for DevOps and map them onto the phases of the DevOps cycle for a better overview of when to use which pattern. In our primary search, we initially identified 193 papers, out of which we eventually selected eight for pattern extraction. We detected 52 patterns, which we grouped into seven categories. Moreover, we mapped these categories onto the phases of the DevOps cycle. We find that in each phase, at least one category maps. Furthermore, there is a near even distribution from patterns onto the phases except for one phase, to which only a single pattern could be mapped. Finally, we investigate whether the patterns can be flawlessly combined and which patterns are needed to provide a minimal technology stack to support the usage of DevOps. We also introduce a concrete sample stack for a simple scenario.