In an era of fast-paced digital transformation, development teams are under constant pressure to deliver software faster and more reliably. In the cloud, DevOps tools are playing a critical role in making that happen.
With Azure DevOps you can accelerate software creation and get new features to your users faster. It is a combination of five powerful services, which work together as one. These tools enable developers to be more productive by streamlining the build, test, and release processes for applications.
Let’s take a deeper dive into what each of these services offers you so you can make the most of them in your development environment.
What is Azure DevOps?
Azure DevOps is a software development process from Microsoft that combines the tools and practices of agile development, continuous integration, and automated deployment to deliver software faster. It provides tools and services that help organizations deploy, track, and manage builds for applications across the cloud.
The service includes a number of tools and features to make it easier for organizations to deploy applications in the cloud, including build, release, and deployment automation tools that help reduce costs, improve security, and increase productivity.
With DevOps, developers can make changes to their codebase without waiting for IT or operations to approve it. They can also deploy new features with confidence that they will be running smoothly in production.
The 5 Azure DevOps services
Azure Boards is the management hub of DevOps. It helps organizations manage and track their work, as well as visualize their progress towards common goals. It makes it easy for team members to see what they’re working on, who’s working with them, and where they’re being held up in the process.
Azure Boards can pull in information from these tools, like assigned tasks and code commits, and display them in your centralized dashboard. You can also add custom data sources and applications to Azure Boards for a more holistic view of your organization’s work. By doing so, you can see the impact of each project on the rest of the business.
Azure Pipeline helps you automate your application build, test, and deploy apps. It integrates with a variety of different tools, making it easy to plug in existing applications and expand your software creation capabilities. Pipeline’s visual designer allows you to configure workflows and trigger actions when they occur. This makes it easy to manage large-scale initiatives and track progress across teams.
Pipeline also provides detailed logging, error tracking, and notification tools to manage each stage of the development process. These help make sure nothing falls through the cracks and that every piece of code is thoroughly tested before being deployed to production.
Azure Repos is a source code management tool that helps you version and track changes to your code. It hosts your code, makes it easier to collaborate, and integrates with other DevOps tools through extensions.
Repos gives you the tools you need to work more efficiently, like the ability to create branches and work on multiple code paths at once. You can store multiple types of files within one repository and create automated workflows to track changes and manage permissions.
Azure Artifacts is a service that allows your team to create, share, and store packages from private and public sources.
In the cloud, it’s difficult for developers to package their work in a way that makes sense to other people outside of their own organization. With Azure Artifacts, developers can package their code into a trusted package that can be shared across teams. It also enables them to consume other people’s packages without having to learn how to write code or build an application themselves.
Azure Test Plans are a suite of testing tools that help you manage everything from test planning to execution. Test Plans integrate with the other DevOps services to manage dependencies, code changes, and issues. Test Plans is designed to work with your existing code.
Once you’ve connected the tools together, Test Plans helps you plan, execute, and manage your testing processes. It also provides tools for reporting on the effectiveness of your testing efforts and following up on bugs discovered during the testing process.
However, it is the only DevOps service that does not offer a free tier.
Benefits of Azure DevOps
Team collaboration: Azure DevOps helps your team members collaborate more effectively, so they can track their progress across the board.
Automation: Azure DevOps makes it easy to automate various aspects of your build, test, and release processes, so your team doesn’t have to waste valuable time performing these functions manually.
Centralized management: Azure DevOps allows you to manage multiple initiatives from a centralized platform, so you can stay on top of projects and make quick adjustments when necessary.
High availability: Microsoft Azure guarantees 99.9% availability for all its paid DevOps services, as well as 99.9% availability to execute load testing, and build and deploy operations in paid Azure Test Plans and Pipelines.
Customization: Utilize the tools of your choice for your software development. Azure integrates with most of the market’s tools for easy experimentation.
Get started on Azure DevOps with the experts
DevOps involves working closely with operations teams and IT professionals to deliver software in a fast, efficient, and reliable manner. You can use the services of Azure DevOps to speed up the development and delivery processes, while reducing costs and risks.
The Microsoft specialists at Technology Solutions can help you get started with DevOps, implementing the services into your business, training your users, and managing the entire environment for optimal security and performance.
