Embedded DevOps: A Survey on the Application of DevOps Practices in Embedded Software and Firmware Development

TL;DR

This survey reviews how DevOps practices are adapted for embedded systems, addressing unique challenges like hardware dependency and real-time constraints, and identifies current limitations and future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of existing research on Embedded DevOps, categorizing efforts and highlighting gaps in deployment workflows and observability.

Findings

DevOps principles are increasingly applied to embedded systems.

Current challenges include hardware dependency and real-time constraints.

Future research should focus on deployment workflows and observability improvements.

Abstract

The adoption of DevOps practices in embedded systems and firmware development is emerging as a response to the growing complexity of modern hardware--software co-designed products. Unlike cloud-native applications, embedded systems introduce challenges such as hardware dependency, real-time constraints, and safety-critical requirements. This literature review synthesizes findings from 20 academic and industrial sources to examine how DevOps principles--particularly continuous integration, continuous delivery, and automated testing--are adapted to embedded contexts. We categorize efforts across tooling, testing strategies, pipeline automation, and security practices. The review highlights current limitations in deployment workflows and observability, proposing a roadmap for future research. This work offers researchers and practitioners a consolidated understanding of Embedded DevOps, bridging fragmented literature with a structured perspective.