DevOps is a very popular methodology that has changed the way software is built and deployed. It has come a long way in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), from Watershed method to Agile to finally DevOps. DevOps means lesser gaps between the operational team and development team for more efficient collaboration between the teams to code, test, validate, produce, deploy, monitor, and maintain the software throughout its lifecycle.
The Addition of DevOps to Cloud:
You can break into the DevOps domain through Azure skills, by enrolling in a recognized Azure DevOps Certification. With the addition of Cloud Computing in the business arena, many companies are flocking to the Cloud, leaving the on-premises set up to bring more flexibility. They are using the Cloud for all of their workloads like:
- shifting their data, using the on-demand database,
- using the on-demand computing power,
- running analytics services on the data, implementing ML and AI, etc., and many more use-cases.
The Cloud is deemed as the best option moving forward in reducing the operational and developmental costs involved in running a business. Companies ranging from a small company like a startup to Small and Medium-sized Business, to enterprises all are using Cloud to run their services.
There are multiple Cloud Service Providers or Vendors in the market. The most popular ones are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft’s Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Alibaba Cloud, etc. All of these Cloud Vendors offer nearly the same level of services. But the market leaders are AWS, Azure, and GCP.
So, once Cloud Computing became the hottest trend, DevOps joined the bandwagon and got integrated with the Cloud. This offering made the whole SDLC easy and much more efficient.
Let’s talk about Azure first.
Microsoft Azure is the world’s 2nd largest Cloud Service Provider that offers its services globally. Azure claims to have more than 95% of Fortune 500 companies using Azure for their workloads. Azure services are being used worldwide in nearly all continents. They have been very competitive in recent years and have shown the fastest growth lately. Microsoft Azure offers more than 200 services and sets par with the industry leader AWS.
Microsoft Azure’s significant advantage is their pricing is based, on a per-minute basis, on most of their services, compared to AWS that charges on a per-hour basis.
Azure DevOps
Before bringing up Azure DevOps, Microsoft was offering Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) which was a coding collaboration service. Recently, Microsoft rebranded VSTS as Azure DevOps. This Azure DevOps has numerous options for tools and the type of Cloud Service choice meeting different use-cases of each company.
Microsoft Azure offers Azure DevOps Services for complete hosted Cloud solutions and an Azure DevOps Server as an on-premise offering. Whichever the companies find more fitting, they can shift to the choice with much more flexibility and reliability than their conventional on-premise setups.
Here in this article, we will be discussing the Azure DevOps Services which is offered only via the Cloud. Azure supports both Public and Private Cloud configurations. What Azure has done is that they have broken down VSTS into five different services/components, and they are:
- Azure Pipelines
- Azure Repos
- Azure Boards
- Azure Artifacts
- Azure Test Plans
Azure DevOps Components
Azure Pipelines: Azure Pipelines is a service catered for fast Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) that can work with any platform, Cloud, or language. You can use this service to create and test your code continuously, provide access to other users and generate quality code using CI/CD tools consistently. Various components of Azure Pipeline include build, release, task groups, library, deployment groups, etc.
Azure Repos: This service offers you a collection of Version Control tools, like Git, Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC). These Version Control tools are used to handle your code, track changes to your code by taking a file snapshot that you are working on. Git offers a distributed Version Control system that means you can work with a complete repository offline.
Azure Boards: Azure Boards helps your team to plan, discuss and track work. It is a powerful agile tool to manage Kanban Board, product backlog, reporting, etc. Its components are backlogs, queries, sprint details, and work items. Azure Boards offers you insights on improving productivity on all work items like epic, task, bug.
Azure Artifacts: Azure Artifacts manage dependencies that are used in the source code. This service is used by a team to host and share package feeds like Nuget, NPM, Maven from both public as well as private sources. These Artifacts make the job building process easy and are easy to integrate with Azure Pipeline too.
Azure Test Plans: Testing is very significant to DevOps methodology. Continuous Testing is important to deliver quality applications to enhance user experience. Azure Test Plans help you test your code manually and exploratorily. You can also request a track and provide feedback. Along with functional and unit testing.
