DevOps & DORA Metrics

DORA Metrics Overview

DORA metrics are a set of key performance indicators used to evaluate the efficiency and reliability of software delivery processes in DevOps. They are divided into two main categories: velocity metrics and stability metrics.

Velocity Metrics

• Deployment Frequency (DF): Measures how often code is deployed to production.

• Lead Time for Changes (LT): Tracks the time from code commit to deployment in production.

Stability Metrics

• Change Failure Rate (CFR): Calculates the percentage of deployments that result in failures.

• Mean Time to Recover (MTTR): Measures the time it takes to restore service after a failure.

Recently, a fifth metric, reliability, has been introduced to assess operational performance.

Example Computation

Let's consider an example of computing these metrics for a fictional company.

Data

• Deployment Frequency (DF): 10 deployments per week.

• Lead Time for Changes (LT): Average of 2 days from commit to production.

• Change Failure Rate (CFR): 2 out of 10 deployments failed.

• Mean Time to Recover (MTTR): Average recovery time is 30 minutes.

Computation

• Deployment Frequency: Already given as 10 deployments per week.

• Lead Time for Changes: 2 days.

• Change Failure Rate: 210×100=20%102×100=20%.

• Mean Time to Recover: 30 minutes.

Interpretation

• Deployment Frequency: High frequency indicates efficient development processes.

• Lead Time for Changes: Short lead time suggests streamlined development pipelines.

• Change Failure Rate: A 20% failure rate indicates room for improvement in testing or deployment processes.

• Mean Time to Recover: Quick recovery time shows resilience in handling failures.

These metrics help teams identify areas for improvement and optimize their software delivery processes.