Azure DevOps tutorial for beginners covers the basics of the tool, including its definition, features, benefits, tools, services, and example implementation of DevOps in the CI/CD pipeline.
DevOps improves communication and fosters trust between developers and system administrators. The core aim of advanced technology is to help enterprises better match tech projects with business needs. The crucial steps of the endless cycle of Azure DevOps include plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate, monitor, then again plan, and so on.
Incorporating this agile approach helps businesses function and manage their software development tasks better. Further, code discipline teams usually follow DevOps phases to get their products to market quickly. In this Azure DevOps tutorial for beginners, we reveal all the essential details about the tool and how to use it.
What is Azure DevOps?
Azure DevOps is a cloud-based platform by Microsoft that helps companies streamline and automate software development processes. It provides access to various services and tools for project management, continuous integration and deployment, source code management, testing, quality management, monitoring, and feedback.
Azure DevOps acts as a unified platform to help teams collaborate more effectively. Hence, it leads to improving the speed and efficiency of software development. Thanks to its benefits, many startups prioritize Azure DevOps services to streamline collaboration with development and operations. But before you plan to adopt the agile methodology, here are some benefits of using it.
- Azure DevOps provides end-to-end solutions to help teams deal with pipelines and catalyze cloud development.
- Azure DevOps expedites delivery by combining all the tools and processes in the cloud.
- The single, unified platform of Azure DevOps helps teams collaborate easily.
- Azure can easily be integrated with most market tools to simplify customization and experimentation.
Azure DevOps Tools and Services
To get an in-depth understanding of what Azure DevOps is and how the technology can help you, it’s wise to learn its services and tools.
Below we understand Azure DevOps services or components briefly.
| Services | Description |
| Azure Pipelines | The pipeline supported by Microsoft Azure helps you build, test, and deploy applications continuously. |
| Azure Boards | The core aim of Azure Boards is to help teams communicate better, track work, deal with backlogs, and quickly create custom reports. |
| Azure Repos | You can think of Azure Repos as a home or storage for repositories. It enables you to pull, push, and commit your changes to unlimited cloud-hosted private Git repositories. |
| Azure Artifacts | Artifacts in Azure enable you to create, host, and share packages among team members. In addition, artifacts ensure pipelines have fully integrated package management regardless of team size. |
| Azure Test Plans | It offers a toolkit for end-to-end, manual, and exploratory testing. Hence, the test plans ensure software functions fine. |
Now that you know the Azure DevOps Services, here are the most commonly used tools.
| Category | Tool Names |
| Configuration Tools | Chef, Ansible, Puppet |
| Microservices | Docker |
| Collaboration | Slack, Trello |
| Development | Visual Studio |
| Monitoring | Kibana, Grafana |
| Continuous Integration | Jenkins |
Aside from Azure DevOps, Amazon Web Services offer DevOps services. AWS leads Azure and GCP in the best cloud computing battle and is known to provide a wide range of services. You can read the ultimate AWS DevOps tutorial for beginners by Inferenz to learn more.
Azure DevOps Services Vs Azure DevOps Server
Azure DevOps Services (previously called Visual Studio Team Services) and Azure DevOps Server (formerly known as Team Foundation Server) are two distinct yet related development tools. These tools can help you with code planning, versioning, and deployment.
In simple words, Azure DevOps Services is a scalable, globally accessible, and dependable cloud-based service. It is constantly monitored and backed by 99.9% SLA.
On the other hand, Azure DevOps Server is built on an SQL Server backend and is an on-premises product. Enterprises choose Azure DevOps Server when they want to use SQL server reporting services or keep their data within the network.
While both development tools provide essential resources to the end users, they differ in certain aspects. Let us cover them below!
| Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server |
| Cloud service | On-premise service |
| Provides two data scaling and scoping options, including projects and organizations. | Provides three data scaling and scoping options, including projects, project collections, and deployment. |
| Each user must have an access level. | Access level is based on the license. |
| Users can easily connect to the internet using the public network. | Users can access the intranet server. |
Using Azure DevOps to Create Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) Pipeline
To help you understand, let us take an example of a two-tiered web application deployed to Azure DevOps and App Service through a continuous integration and deployment pipeline. This robust strategy will help you concentrate on software development rather than infrastructure management.
- Developers make a change in the source code of the application.
- The addition of the web configuration file and application code to the Azure Repose source code repository takes place.
- The continuous integration system uses the Azure Test Plans to launch the application, build procedures, and execute unit tests.
- The continuous deployment component of the Azure DevOps pipeline deploys the application Artifacts by using the configuration variables according to the environment.
- Next, the Azure pipelines send these Artifacts to the App service.
- Application insights are used to gather and examine information regarding the health, performance, and usage of the application.
- The development team manages and monitors the application information.
- The DevOps engineer consults the backlog to prioritize the bug fixes and additional Azure Boards features.
Leverage the Power of Azure DevOps Technology
Getting started with Azure DevOps may seem overwhelming, especially if you are a beginner in software development. However, understanding the technicalities of the tool can help you streamline your software development projects. If you are a developer intending to learn how to use the tool, this Azure DevOps tutorial can help you with appropriate knowledge.
However, if you’re a business looking to integrate technology, it’s vital to have a team of experts by your side. Inferenz has a team of experienced professionals who understands the nitty and gritty of the cloud computing industry. Whether you want to migrate data to the Azure cloud or want to understand the Azure DevOps tutorial better, feel free to schedule a call with our experts.
