Visual notations in container orchestrations: an empirical study with Docker Compose

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2022

Authors

Piedade, B (Author) Other; Dias, JP (Author) FEUP; Filipe Figueiredo Correia (Author) FEUP

Journal

The Journal is awaiting validation by the Administrative Services.

Title: SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS MODELING

Vol. 21

Pages: 1983-2005

ISSN: 1619-1366

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citations

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00W-Y2N

DOI: 10.1007/s10270-022-01027-8

Abstract (EN): Container orchestration tools supporting infrastructure-as-code allow new forms of collaboration between developers and operatives. Still, their text-based nature permits naive mistakes and is more difficult to read as complexity increases. We can find few examples of low-code approaches for defining the orchestration of containers, and there seems to be a lack of empirical studies showing the benefits and limitations of such approaches. We hypothesize that a complete visual notation for Docker-based orchestrations could reduce the effort, the error rate, and the development time. Therefore, we developed a tool featuring such a visual notation for Docker Compose configurations, and we empirically evaluated it in a controlled experiment with novice developers. The results show a significant reduction in development time and error-proneness when defining Docker Compose files, supporting our hypothesis. The participants also thought the prototype easier to use and useful, and wanted to use it in the future.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 23