How China Postal Savings Bank Reached Industry-Leading DevOps Maturity with the Star Platform

Background

Large enterprises worldwide have proven that standardization and tool empowerment are key to success. The DevOps standards and the associated continuous delivery pipeline platform can significantly improve quality, efficiency, and agility, enhancing market competitiveness.

2023 XOps Industry Innovation Forum

On July 18, 2023, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) hosted the "2023 XOps Industry Innovation Development Forum" in Beijing. The forum, themed "Quality‑Efficiency Integration·Steady Progress, Co‑creating the New Future of XOps," aimed to improve enterprise R&D‑operations capabilities and share XOps system‑building experiences. CAICT announced the latest batch of DevOps/AIOps standard evaluation results.

Postal Savings Bank Achievement

China Postal Savings Bank participated with its "Star Platform" project, which passed the CAICT evaluation for the R&D‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model – System and Tool Standard – Test Management Platform at the Excellent level. The bank simultaneously passed two modules: Test Case Management and Test Plan Management , demonstrating a leading domestic capability in DevOps.

To date, the bank has completed ten CAICT DevOps standard evaluations: three for continuous delivery, six for system and tool standards, and one for DevSecOps.

Interview with Hu Junfeng (General Manager, Software R&D Center)

Q: Please introduce yourself, your organization, and the project you evaluated.

Hu Junfeng: I am the General Manager of the Software R&D Center at China Postal Savings Bank. Our bank, one of the six major state‑owned banks, serves over 600 million personal customers through a unique "self‑operated + agency" model. We pursue digital transformation via fintech, focusing on smart platforms, experience, ecosystem, and accelerated digitalization. Implementing DevOps and open‑source governance has continuously enhanced our IT governance.

The "Star Platform" is an enterprise‑level test management platform that standardizes testing processes, integrates tools, and consolidates test assets, forming a full‑process version delivery data pipeline.

Key subsystems include:

"Double Fish" – task and plan management, covering creation, closed‑loop planning, and result tracking.

"Lion" – test case and defect management, supporting requirement‑case mapping, manual/automated execution, and traceability.

"Orion" – test environment management, providing self‑service data generation and reducing acquisition costs.

Q: How do you feel about passing the DevOps system and tool standard assessment?

Hu Junfeng: We are honored to pass the assessment again. The evaluation offered valuable, actionable suggestions. Our team aligned tightly with the standards, improving test plan and case management, and received industry recognition for both system capability and practical outcomes.

Q: How important is an end‑to‑end, integrated toolchain for DevOps adoption?

Hu Junfeng: In a rapidly changing banking environment, DevOps streamlines demand, design, development, testing, deployment, and operations, standardizing and automating processes to boost delivery efficiency and value. Building a tailored, integrated toolchain accelerates release capability and aligns with both team‑level and organization‑level efficiency goals.

Our bank has developed proprietary tools—DevOps collaboration platform, CloudMap management system, and the Star Platform—to address internal needs that commercial products cannot fully satisfy.

Q: What considerations guided your participation in the system and tool standard assessment?

Hu Junfeng: We prioritize technology‑driven innovation and digital banking transformation. Aligning with the DevOps standards, formulated by CAICT and industry experts, helps us identify gaps, adopt best practices, and continuously improve our R&D efficiency.

Since 2019, we have achieved multiple DevOps maturity milestones, including continuous delivery level‑3, three excellent‑level system and tool modules, and a level‑2 DevSecOps assessment. These successes motivate us to further evaluate test plan and case management modules.

Q: What changes resulted from passing the system and tool assessment?

Hu Junfeng: The assessment drove comprehensive improvements:

Enhanced test management workflow covering task creation, plan changes, execution, and feedback.

Strengthened team cohesion and skill development, fostering a cadre of motivated engineers.

Interview with Zhang Lanying (Senior IT Expert, Software R&D Center)

Q: How did the assessment improve the project?

Zhang Lanying: We refined test plan and case management, achieving fine‑grained, end‑to‑end testing processes. The "Double Fish" subsystem now manages over 930 test projects and 2,990 sub‑plans; the "Lion" subsystem supports 290 engineering projects with more than 2.5 million test cases; the "Orion" subsystem serves over 40 environments, generating 500+ data sets daily.

Q: What challenges did you face during the assessment and how were they solved?

Zhang Lanying: Strong leadership support enabled a dedicated project team to analyze standards and devise implementation plans. Although the Star Platform had existing foundations, gaps remained. We executed three iterative improvement cycles, assigning tasks daily, conducting morning progress reviews, and balancing production stability with rapid capability building.

Q: What are the next steps for DevOps in testing?

Zhang Lanying: We will build a DevTestOps continuous testing system covering the full product lifecycle, establishing standardized processes, reliable environments, a unified platform, and real‑time monitoring. This will enable rapid business validation and improve delivery speed and quality.

Q: What is your view on the future of DevOps?

Zhang Lanying: DevOps is evolving into XOps, integrating business and IT. Emerging domains include AIOps (leveraging big data, cloud, AI), BizDevOps (business value and process management), FinOps (IT‑finance alignment), and ArchOps (architecture governance). Postal Savings Bank will continue to adopt these trends, embedding best practices into R&D‑operations, performance measurement, security, and intelligence.

State‑Owned Bank Participation Statistics (as of July 18 2023)

DevOps Capability Maturity Model Overview

The "R&D‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" series, led by CAICT with contributions from top internet companies and major financial and telecom enterprises, is the first comprehensive DevOps standard worldwide. It has been published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and adopted by many leading firms.

In July 2020, the DevOps standard was officially concluded by the ITU‑T, becoming the world’s first international DevOps standard. The model covers process management (agile, continuous delivery, technical operations), application design, security, system and tools, business value, collaborative development, continuous testing, performance measurement, platform engineering, and reliability engineering.

Contact Information

China Academy of Information and Communications Technology – Wang Xingshu: 18510111239, [email protected]

CAICT – Liu Kailin: 156 5078 6171, [email protected]

CAICT – Bai Hanhong: 159 1076 9206, [email protected]

Efficient Operations Community – Wei Huanxin: 18500255645, [email protected]

Images