Azure DevOps is a set of services and tools that help teams manage the entire application lifecycle. From planning and development to deployment and operations, Azure DevOps provides an integrated environment to enable collaboration, continuous integration, delivery, and monitoring.
Azure DevOps training in Chennai will provide a comprehensive overview of the Azure DevOps ecosystem. We will explore services like Azure Boards, Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, Azure Test Plans, Azure Artifacts, and more. By the end of this Azure DevOps training, you will know to start leveraging these tools to enable DevOps practices in your organization.
Introduction to Azure DevOps:
Azure DevOps is a suite of services from Microsoft that provides version control, agile planning, continuous integration and delivery, test case management, static code analysis, and more for development teams. The Azure DevOps ecosystem allows teams to adopt modern DevOps practices and tooling on Azure cloud infrastructure.
With Azure DevOps, developers can use Git repositories or Team Foundation Version Control for source control, automate builds and deployments through Azure Pipelines, track work with agile tools in Azure Boards, manage dependencies in Azure Artifacts, and extend functionality with the Azure DevOps Marketplace. Teams can implement a comprehensive DevOps workflow in the cloud.
In this post, we’ll explore the key services and capabilities of Azure DevOps to understand how it enables productive collaboration for development teams.
Understanding Azure DevOps Services:
Azure DevOps provides the following main services:
- Azure Repos: Git and Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) for source control
- Azure Pipelines: Build and release automation
- Azure Boards: Agile planning and work tracking
- Azure Test Plans: Test case management
- Azure Artifacts: Package management
- Azure DevOps Marketplace: Extensions and integrations
These services provide end-to-end DevOps tooling in an integrated platform. Teams get capabilities for the entire application lifecycle from planning to coding, building, testing, packaging, release, and monitoring.
Key benefits of Azure DevOps include:
- Cloud-based DevOps services with high availability
- Flexible self-hosted agents for builds and deployments
- Integration with Azure services for staging and production environments
- Extensibility through Azure DevOps Marketplace
- Scalability to support large development teams
- Role-based access control for security
Azure DevOps provides these capabilities while abstracting away the complexity of infrastructure management.
Azure DevOps Repositories: Git and TFVC
Azure Repos provides distributed version control for your code using either Git or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC).
With Git repositories, you get the full capabilities of a native Git experience including branching strategies like GitFlow and GitHub flow, pull requests, code reviews, Git hooks, and integration with IDEs like Visual Studio and VS Code. Azure DevOps adds extra functionality like customizable policies, Kanban boards for tracking pull requests, and advanced security controls.
For teams that prefer a centralized version control system, Azure Repos supports TFVC. This provides atomic commits, branching strategies, security namespaces, and integration with development workflows. However, Git is generally recommended for most scenarios given its speed and distributed capabilities.
Key features for source control in Azure Repos include:
- Unlimited free private Git repositories
- Full-featured web-based Git repository management
- Support for large codebases and binary files
- Role-based access control for repositories
- Configurable branch policies
- Pull request workflow automation and integration
- Built-in Wiki for documentation
- Visual Studio integration
- Command-line access through Git Credential Manager
With advanced source control capabilities and the flexibility to use either Git or TFVC, Azure Repos provides the foundation for DevOps pipelines.
Azure Pipelines: Automating Builds and Deployments
Azure Pipelines is the continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) tool in Azure DevOps. It allows you to automatically build, test, and deploy your applications by connecting to Git repositories.
The build pipelines provide comprehensive build automation with multi-stage pipelines. You can add tasks for exercises like fetching dependencies, running tests, code linting, security scanning, creating build artifacts, and more. Anything that can be scripted can be automated in a build pipeline.
For deployments, you can deploy to multiple stages like development, QA, and production environments. Azure Pipelines has deep integration with Azure to streamline cloud deployments. It also works with any Kubernetes cluster, VMs, on-prem environments, and more. Release pipelines offer approval workflows, automatic rollbacks, and progressive delivery mechanisms like canary and blue-green deployments.
Key features of Azure Pipelines include:
- Cloud-hosted build agents with scale-up to thousands of concurrent builds
- Self-hosted build agents for on-premises or hybrid infrastructure
- Multi-stage build pipelines with reusable tasks
- Built-in tasks for common tooling like Maven, .NET, Xcode, Python, Node, Go, etc.
- Deployments to Azure, Kubernetes, cloud-agnostic
- Approval workflows and automated rollbacks
- Integration with open-source and third-party tools through a rich extensibility model
- Detailed auditing and diagnostics for pipelines
With Azure Pipelines, you can implement advanced CI/CD workflows to ship high-quality code quickly and safely.
Azure Boards: Agile Planning and Tracking:
Azure Boards delivers a full suite of agile planning and tracking tools to plan, track, and discuss work across your development teams.
It includes configurable Kanban boards, backlogs, team dashboards, and custom reporting capabilities. Whether your team follows Scrum, Kanban, or custom workflows, you can manage your agile process through Azure Boards.
Key features include:
- Customizable Kanban boards with WIP limits
- Backlogs for Scrum processes
- Sprints and cross-team dashboards
- Workflow automation triggers
- Customizable queries and reports
- Team collaboration through @mentions
- Integration with commits and builds
- Planning, tracking, and discussion from a single tool
Azure Boards provides transparency into teamwork and progress to all stakeholders. With integrated and automated agile tools, you can focus on execution rather than management overhead.
Azure Artifacts: Package Management:
Azure Artifacts provides scalable private package management for your dependencies so you can safely share packages across your organization.
It natively supports Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python package types while also having a universal package format. You can set up multiple upstream sources including connections to public repositories like npmjs and PyPi.
Key features include:
- Scalable private package feeds
- Support for Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python
- Universal packages for any artifact type
- Upstream sources like public npm and PyPi
- Role-based access control for packages
- Integration with build pipelines
- Caching and artifact storage scalability -promotion Â
Azure Artifacts helps you share reusable code securely while giving you full visibility into dependencies. Package management is a critical part of modern DevOps workflows.
Azure DevOps Extensions and Marketplace:
The Azure DevOps Marketplace contains hundreds of extensions from Microsoft and partners to extend DevOps capabilities. You can install extensions for almost any DevOps tool into your Azure DevOps organization.
There are extensions for test management tools like TestRail and qTest, code quality like Checkmarx and SonarQube, collaboration tools like Teams and Slack, CI/CD tools like Jenkins and Bamboo, and pretty much any DevOps tool you need.
By integrating these extensions, you can incorporate your existing toolchain into Azure DevOps to create a central hub for end-to-end DevOps. It saves you from having to manually piece together disjointed tools.
Key highlights include:
- Seamless third-party integrations
- 1000+ extensions for leading DevOps tools
- Microsoft and partner extensions
- Extend capabilities without switching tools
- Uniform DevOps experience across tools, roles, and processes
- Discoverability through the categorized marketplace
The Azure DevOps Marketplace enables you to tailor your Azure DevOps environment with your choice of tools.
Integrating Azure DevOps with Other Tools:
While Azure DevOps provides end-to-end DevOps capabilities, you may need to integrate with other platforms for certain workflows.
Azure DevOps offers integration with many Microsoft tools like:
- Azure – Deploy applications and infrastructure to Azure through release pipelines. Manage Azure resources and monitor telemetry.
- Office 365 – Connect work items to Office 365 groups. Share documents from Office 365.
- Power BI – Embed analytics and reports from Power BI into Azure DevOps.
- Visual Studio – Use Visual Studio IDE for code editing and debugging with Azure DevOps integration.
- Teams – Collaboration through Teams channels. Share Azure DevOps notifications in Teams.
There is also extensive integration with third-party tools through REST APIs and the Azure DevOps Marketplace:
- GitHub – Bidirectional GitHub – Azure DevOps integration.
- Jira – Bidirectional Jira integration to sync work items.
- Jenkins – Integrate Jenkins pipelines with Azure DevOps.
- Slack/Discord – ChatOps with Azure DevOps bots.
- Datadog/New Relic – Integrate monitoring and log analytics.
- ServiceNow – Sync service requests with work items.
With robust integration capabilities, Azure DevOps can augment your existing tools and processes.
Best Practices for Azure DevOps Implementation:
Here are some best practices to follow when implementing Azure DevOps:
- Start small – Roll out Azure DevOps capabilities incrementally rather than all at once. Begin with high-value areas like Git repository management.
- Configure for your process – Customize process templates, boards, and pipelines for your team’s methodology. Don’t forcibly adapt your process to the tool.
- Automate incrementally – Introduce automation in stages focused on the deployment pipeline first. Expand automation to QA, security, and release processes.
- Integrate where possible – Utilize extensions for your existing tools rather than replacing them. Integrate third-party tools where necessary.
- Analyze data – Leverage Azure DevOps analytics to identify bottlenecks in your pipelines and processes. Let data guide optimization.
- Promote collaboration – Use Azure Boards, Wikis, and pull requests for cross-team planning and knowledge sharing.
- Manage security – Lock down permissions and access. Use branch policies and approvals for critical changes. Monitor audit logs.
- Keep updating – Stay current on new Azure DevOps features and extensions to continuously improve practices.
By following these guidelines, you can have an effective Azure DevOps implementation tailored to your organization.
Conclusion: Navigating the Future of Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps delivers a comprehensive set of DevOps services to enhance productivity, collaboration, and deployment automation for development teams. The core capabilities span git repository management, CI/CD pipelines, agile planning, test management, and artifact packaging.
With a rich extensibility model through REST APIs and the Azure DevOps Marketplace, you can integrate both Microsoft and third-party tools to create an end-to-end DevOps environment. Azure DevOps services continue to evolve with innovations like review apps, pipelines for databases, and intelligence-infused experiences.
By adopting Azure DevOps, organizations can enable developer productivity, implement DevOps practices, and deliver high-quality software quickly, securely, and at scale. Azure DevOps provides the capabilities to navigate the future landscape of software development and delivery.
