Life Cycle of Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps covers every step in the application lifecycle to safely deploy from planning, collaborating and testing. If your business develops and/or hosts web or mobile apps, Azure DevOps services can provide the full visibility across projects that your team needs. The main services are described below.

Azure Boards

Agile tools, Kanban boards, team dashboards, built-in scrum boards and more — Azure Boards is where your team will plan, track and discuss projects at every stage in the lifecycle. Backlog tracking and powerful analytics give insight into project status. With visualizations and tracking tools, your team can easily track any code changes that are linked directly to work items.

Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines comprise the whole end-to-end story of how you write code and get it into production. An integrated set of features allow you to automatically build and test your web, desktop and mobile applications and deploy to any cloud or on-premises. It works with just about any language or project type including Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, Ruby, C/C++, .NET, Android and iOS apps, as well as support for YAML so you can have pipelines versioned with your code.

upper management meeting between four board members with electronic tablet

Azure Repos

This is where your source control is stored that gets published to the artifacts. Unlimited, cloud-hosted Git repos allow developers to collaborate on code.

Azure Test Plans

A browser-based test management solution, Azure Test Plans provides all the capabilities to test with confidence before deployment. This includes planned manual testing, user acceptance testing, exploratory testing, and gathering feedback from stakeholders. You can test across desktop and web apps, as well as capture data as tests are executed.

Azure Artifacts

Package management with Azure Artifacts simplifies complex build jobs and allows your teams to create and share Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python package feeds. Artifacts provide a place to push your packages so that they can be consumed by the rest of the team or partners. Sources can be public and private.

Your software development teams can use all these DevOps services together, or mix and match to use only what you need as part of your existing workflows.

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More on Microsoft Azure, plus how to get started

Azure is a flexible public cloud computing platform that provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). It supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Azure’s ever-expanding cloud-based computing services include analytics, virtual computing, storage, networking, and much more. As a cloud service, there is no need to manage hardware or server software.

Before deploying Azure DevOps tools for your software development teams, it is wise to pre-plan how you will support and operate services in the cloud.

These are some of the questions you will want answered before moving forward.

(Hint: this will save you a lot of time and effort later.)

Four business people laughing during a professional board room meeting

What Azure regions will your company leverage to run assets and services in the cloud?
How many Azure subscriptions will be used and what directory (e.g., Azure Active Directory) will each subscription be associated to?
What roles will you leverage to manage permissions in the Azure subscription?
Will these roles be integrated to Active Directory group membership?
How will services in the cloud be tracked and properly paid for? What “cost code” will it align with (CapEx or OpEx)?
What “guard rails” (Azure management groups) will you apply to Azure resources in different subscriptions to ensure proper tracking and accountability of services in the cloud?
What will your naming standards be for Azure resources? What about “tagging” resources with what tags/values?
What specific Azure services will you use, and which ones will you not use due to security, cost, operational support or maturity?

Azure Boards

Agile tools, Kanban boards, team dashboards, built-in scrum boards and more — Azure Boards is where your team will plan, track and discuss projects at every stage in the lifecycle. Backlog tracking and powerful analytics give insight into project status. With visualizations and tracking tools, your team can easily track any code changes that are linked directly to work items.

Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines comprise the whole end-to-end story of how you write code and get it into production. An integrated set of features allow you to automatically build and test your web, desktop and mobile applications and deploy to any cloud or on-premises. It works with just about any language or project type including Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, Ruby, C/C++, .NET, Android and iOS apps, as well as support for YAML so you can have pipelines versioned with your code.

Azure Repos

This is where your source control is stored that gets published to the artifacts. Unlimited, cloud-hosted Git repos allow developers to collaborate on code.

Azure Test Plans

A browser-based test management solution, Azure Test Plans provides all the capabilities to test with confidence before deployment. This includes planned manual testing, user acceptance testing, exploratory testing, and gathering feedback from stakeholders. You can test across desktop and web apps, as well as capture data as tests are executed.

Azure Artifacts

Package management with Azure Artifacts simplifies complex build jobs and allows your teams to create and share Maven, npm, NuGet, and Python package feeds. Artifacts provide a place to push your packages so that they can be consumed by the rest of the team or partners. Sources can be public and private.

Your software development teams can use all these DevOps services together, or mix and match to use only what you need as part of your existing workflows.

More on Microsoft Azure, plus how to get started

Azure is a flexible public cloud computing platform that provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). It supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Azure’s ever-expanding cloud-based computing services include analytics, virtual computing, storage, networking, and much more. As a cloud service, there is no need to manage hardware or server software.

Before deploying Azure DevOps tools for your software development teams, it is wise to pre-plan how you will support and operate services in the cloud.

These are some of the questions you will want answered before moving forward.

(Hint: this will save you a lot of time and effort later.)

• What Azure regions will your company leverage to run assets and services in the cloud?
• How many Azure subscriptions will be used and what directory (e.g., Azure Active Directory) will each subscription be associated to?
• What roles will you leverage to manage permissions in the Azure subscription?
• Will these roles be integrated to Active Directory group membership?
• How will services in the cloud be tracked and properly paid for? What “cost code” will it align with (CapEx or OpEx)?
• What “guard rails” (Azure management groups) will you apply to Azure resources in different subscriptions to ensure proper tracking and accountability of services in the cloud?
• What will your naming standards be for Azure resources? What about “tagging” resources with what tags/values?
• What specific Azure services will you use, and which ones will you not use due to security, cost, operational support or maturity?