How Inner Mongolia Mobile Reached a Leading DevOps Continuous Delivery Level

Event Overview

On May 21, 2021, the 16th GOPS Global Operations Conference was held in Shenzhen, jointly organized by the Open Source Cloud Alliance (OSCAR), GreatOPS, and OOPSA. During the conference, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) released the 12th batch of DevOps standard continuous‑delivery assessment results.

Assessment Result for Inner Mongolia Mobile

Inner Mongolia Mobile (a wholly‑owned subsidiary of China Mobile) participated with its Government‑Enterprise Business Support System (ESOP) project and passed the Level 3 continuous‑delivery assessment of the "R&D‑Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model". Level 3 is considered a domestic leading standard.

The company became the fifth mobile subsidiary to achieve Level 3, following Zhejiang, Guangdong, Beijing, and Jiangsu Mobile.

Interview Highlights

Q: Please introduce your company and the project you evaluated. The IT department explained that Inner Mongolia Mobile is the largest telecom operator in the region, focusing on digital transformation through an integrated IT support system that aligns architecture, processes, and tools.

The ESOP project is a unified portal for government‑enterprise services, consolidating multiple business platforms (BBOSS, CRM, provincial CRM, etc.) into a one‑stop solution.

Q: How did you feel about passing the Level 3 assessment? The manager thanked CAICT and senior leadership, noting that the ESOP portal now supports personalized functions for managers, operators, and customer managers, greatly enhancing business support.

Q: Why did you decide to join the DevOps assessment? Since 2017, the team experimented with CI/CD and agile practices but lacked a complete toolchain. The 2019 "Enterprise‑level Smart Middle‑Platform" strategy prompted the adoption of the DevOps maturity model to guide a full‑scale transformation.

Q: What benefits has the assessment brought? Three major impacts were identified:

Optimization of the DevOps integration system, providing full‑lifecycle coverage and clear guidance.

Organizational improvements in process, platform, culture, and pilot projects, including automated pipelines, metric dashboards, and training.

Entry into the "Enterprise‑level DevOps Empowerment" program, gaining exchange opportunities, talent certification, and a roadmap for further optimization.

Q: What measurable improvements were observed? The assessment showed:

Requirement delivery cycle reduced by 25%.

Version delivery cycle cut by 50%.

Integration efficiency increased 300%, with integration time dropping from 2 hours to under 30 minutes.

Automated test coverage reached 95% and test efficiency improved by ~50%.

Release frequency increased, enabling on‑demand deployments.

Q: What challenges did you face during the assessment? Initially the team scored only 1.7 level, which motivated a focused effort. Key solutions included thorough process analysis, selecting suitable tools, building stable pipelines, and establishing clear metrics and governance.

Q: What are the future plans? The roadmap outlines three years: 2020 – foundation and rating; 2021 – deepening and integration across multiple centers; 2022 – maturity and ecosystem, extending DevOps to all projects.

DevOps Standard Overview

The DevOps Capability Maturity Model, led by CAICT with contributions from major internet and telecom companies, became the first international DevOps standard approved by ITU‑T in July 2020. It covers agile management, continuous delivery, technical operations, application design, security, risk management, and tooling.