How Anxin Securities Achieved DevOps Level‑3: Lessons from a Nationwide Assessment

Overview

From enterprise practice, standardization and tool empowerment are key to success. The DevOps standard and a standard‑based continuous‑delivery pipeline platform greatly improve software development efficiency, enabling faster and more flexible market response.

GNSEC 2020 Global Software Engineering Summit

The summit, co‑organized by the Cloud Computing Open Industry Alliance, Efficient Operations Community and DevOps Era Community, was held on June 19, 2020, with over 3,000 online participants. It focused on comprehensive software engineering and technology, aiming to define the next generation of software engineering and foster collaboration among experts, scholars, and practitioners.

DevOps Standard Evaluation Results

The seventh batch of assessment results was announced. Participating enterprises included Anxin Securities, China Agricultural Bank (5 projects), Bank of Communications Card Center, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (3 projects), China People’s Insurance, and Taikang Insurance.

Anxin Securities Project

Anxin Securities’ mobile securities trading service platform was evaluated at level 3 of the continuous‑delivery part of the DevOps capability maturity model, a leading domestic level, indicating that the project’s continuous‑delivery capability is among the best in the country.

Interview with Xu Yanbing, IT Director of Anxin Securities

Q: What does passing the level‑3 DevOps assessment mean for the company?

Xu: We started the DevOps project in June‑July 2019, selecting the mobile trading platform because it is self‑developed, architecturally complex, and requires frequent iteration. The aim was to establish organization‑wide DevOps capability, not merely pass a single project.

We had already begun building a toolchain (JIRA for demand management, Confluence for reviews, Jenkins for CI, etc.), but the tools were not well integrated and usage varied across teams. Through the assessment we unified processes, CI/CD pipelines, and metrics, laying a foundation for other systems.

We are also aligning with CMMI‑3 requirements, standardizing roles, development models, and iteration cycles. The DevOps pipeline is essential for implementing CMMI effectively.

Q: Why did the company decide to pursue the DevOps standard assessment?

Xu: The securities industry has increased IT investment, shifting from purchased systems to self‑developed and collaborative development. As the development team grew, a robust R&D management system became necessary, similar to building a production line in a factory.

Q: What are the benefits of building the toolchain with open‑source tools?

We chose open‑source tools such as Confluence, JIRA, Jenkins, and GitLab because they are mature, widely used, and have strong ecosystems. Building the toolchain as infrastructure gives us control, avoids vendor lock‑in, and allows rapid adaptation to our evolving processes.

The open‑source approach also lets us replace or add individual tools as needed, keeping the pipeline advanced and flexible.

Q: What are Anxin’s plans for DevOps in the next two to three years?

We will have two more projects undergo DevOps assessment this year and aim for full coverage of all self‑developed and collaborative systems within one to two years. We will continuously optimize the R&D process, enhance the CI/CD portal, and improve the measurement platform to automate analysis and provide actionable recommendations.

Q: How do DevOps and CMMI standards complement each other?

They are complementary: CMMI defines process documentation, while DevOps provides the toolchain that implements continuous delivery. Integrating both creates a modern R&D management system.

Q: What challenges were encountered during the project?

Key challenges included gaining team commitment, rebuilding processes from scratch, and unifying diverse tools and practices across multiple teams (development, testing, security, operations). Overcoming these required strong leadership, continuous learning, and iterative improvement.

Q: Why was the DevOps standard chosen as the first step?

We needed a practical, tool‑driven framework to support agile transformation. DevOps provides concrete technical and management details, enabling us to build a company‑wide platform that aligns with industry best practices and demonstrates our capabilities to the market.

For further information on the DevOps standard assessment, contact the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) at [email protected] or the Efficient Operations Community at [email protected].