DevOps and CI/CD for WinCC Open Architecture Applications and Frameworks

This paper presents the Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tool chain for WinCC Open Architecture applications and frameworks developed at CERN, enabling a DevOps oriented approach of working. By identifying common patterns and time consuming procedures, and by agreeing on standard repository structures, naming conventions and tooling, we have gained a turnkey solution which automates the compilation of binaries and generation of documentation, thus guaranteeing they are up to date and match the source code in the repository. The pipelines generate deployment-ready software releases, which pass through both static code analysis and unit tests before automatically being deployed to short and long-term repositories. The tool chain leverages industry standard technologies, such as GitLab, Docker and Nexus. The technologies chosen for the tool chain are well understood and have a long, solid track record, reducing the effort in maintenance and potential long term risk. The setup has reduced the expert time needed for testing and releases, while generally improving the release quality.