Challenge
DFDS operates large systems that transport thousands of people every
day; the company is a critical part of the infrastructure between
countries. This means that their systems have to evolve securely
without disruptions to their mission of keeping people and goods
safe. Progressing by small, incremental and frequent releases is the
only choice.
In 2018, with the goal of maintaining a high-performing development
team while restructuring, DFDS set out to get teams and
microservices organized around their business capabilities. This was
a core strategic initiative to have a software architecture that
allows for autonomous teams, enabling easy scaling, faster time to
market and smooth onboarding of new developers.
Shifting from a monolith into a microservice landscape is a complex
task that requires monitoring.
CHALLENGE #1
Maintaining a high-performing development team while
restructuring.
CHALLENGE #2
Ensuring systems evolve securely without disruptions to DFDS's
mission of keeping people and goods safe.
CHALLENGE #3
Meet core strategic initiative to have a software architecture that
allows for autonomous teams, easy scaling, faster time to market and
smooth onboarding of new developers.
Key analysis used
Architectural Analysis
DFDS used CodeScene’s architectural analyses to uncover unexpected
team coupling, track implicit dependencies, and visualize the
coordination needs between development teams. This made it possible
to measure how organizational patterns influence code quality and
how they are linked to the software architecture.
Martin Bungaard,
Chapter leader at DFDS HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark
“Are we making a distributed monolith or are we making decoupled
microservices? It can be hard to see if just looking at the
repositories. I find it clear to get information from CodeScene
regarding this by using the change coupling”
Offboarding Analyses
DFDS uses offboarding simulation to get information about what
should be handed over and what the impact is of a developer leaving
a project.
Automated Pull Request Reviews
CodeScene is integrated into the development pipelines where it
reports valuable metrics automatically. This lets the DFDS
development teams utilize CodeScene to ensure high quality in new
code via the automated pull request review.
Martin Bungaard,
Chapter leader at DFDS HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark
“It is very hard to change code already running in production
compared to changing it before it is merged into master. CodeScene
informs our developers about undesired parts of the new code – and
the recommendations are mostly met.”
CodeScene Goals
When they identify files with low Code Health, DFDS also use
CodeScene’s Goals that allow them to make sure the relevant code is
improving over time.
Hotspot Maps
Hotspot Maps are used to identify problematic areas and candidates
for pro-active refactorings.
