The Role Of Post-Release Software Traceability in Release Engineering: A Software-Intensive Embedded Systems Case Study From The Telecommunications Domain

Abstract

Modern release engineering practices such as continuous integration and delivery have allowed software development companies to transition from a long release cycle to a shorter one. The shorter release cycle has led to more software releases available to customers. At the same time, companies developing high-volume software-intensive embedded systems often deliver patch releases and maintenance releases on top of major and minor releases to customers who pick and choose what releases apply to them and decide when to upgrade the system, if to upgrade at all. While release engineering has been studied before in web-based, desktop-based, and embedded software, the focus has been on pre-release activities. Few studies have investigated what happens after the release, particularly the role of tracing software from release to deployment in high-volume software-intensive embedded systems. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative case study at a multi-national telecommunications systems provider focusing on Radio Access Network (RAN) software. RAN software is a complex and large-scale embedded software used in mobile networks Base Stations (BS), providing software functionality for RAN mobile technologies ranging from 2G to 5G. Our study shed light on post-release software traceability and how it is used in the release engineering process.