All about Azure DevOps – Services, Features, Benefits and Comparisons

For the uninitiated, DevOps is an integral IT methodology in today’s times that combines the teams involved with software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to accommodate a faster and constant flow of software releases with minimal errors. This is also referred to as continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD). The DevOps methodology helps cut down the overall development lifecycle time.

What Azure DevOps does?

A Software as a service (SaaS) platform by Microsoft, Azure DevOps allows you to access a DevOps toolchain from end-to-end to help develop and deploy software programs. It gives you an upper hand because of its ability to integrate with almost all the top tools in the industry and build better software programs regardless of the platform, language or cloud service used.

Azure should not be mistaken as a single tool. It comprises of different services that include:

·      Azure Boards: It is a tool that handles agile planning, tracks work items, provides visuals and reports.

·      Azure Pipelines: This is a CI/CD platform that supports languages, platforms and cloud services along with Kubernetes or containers.

·      Azure Repos: This tool grants access to any private git repository hosted on the cloud, along with added benefits like pull requests and advanced file management.

·      Azure Artifacts: These artifacts supply developers with complete package management covering Maven, Python, npm and NuGet package feeds, sourced from both public and private sources.

·      Azure test Plans: This tool gives access to an integrated, planned and exploratory software testing solution. 

Features of Azure DevOps:

·      Dashboard Control: The dashboard control feature allows smooth and convenient navigation to all the different parts of your project. You can customize the dashboards by adding more of them and changing the configuration of the widgets.

·      Better Source Control: The Azure platform accommodates both of the two most preferred types of source control, namely Git, which is more of a distributed system, and TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control), which is a consolidated client-server system. The source controls are customizable, and they give you access to see the change in history.

·      Tracking Work Progress: Azure DevOps can help you with both planning and tracking your workflow by providing a bunch of work items that can survey features, requirements, user feedback, operations, errors, etc. Your planning needs are served by the different backlogs and boards compatible with the most used agile methods like Scrum, Kanban or Scrumban. Azure allows you to update the work items continually and manage the backlogs and create the workflow visuals as it progresses.

·      Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): CI/CD is a prevalent practice among developers and Azure is compatible with this method. Azure pipelines come handy in this case as it allows for process automation for the designing phase.

·      Manual and Exploratory Test Support: Azure DevOps in the software testing aspect accommodates manual, continuous and exploratory testing, with provided features like customizing the workflow, end-to-end traceability, real-time test activity tracking, etc.

What are the benefits of using Azure DevOps?

While Azure DevOps comes with a host of benefits for professionals involved in the DevOps methodology, the key benefits include:

1.     Frequent New Feature Updates: Users are given access to new features every three weeks, eliminating confusion. This makes sure that the users are updated about recent changes and can utilize the most out of them without having to go anywhere else for assistance.

2.     No Interruptions for Upgrading: Since Azure DevOps is a SaaS platform, there is no need to be concerned with the toolchain upgrading or patching up. This is beneficial for projects executed in the CI/CD model since there is no more need to slow down the upgrade process.

3.     Consumer Support: Azure DevOps is backed by 24/7 user support and 99.9% SLA. Thus, apart from development and IT, an experienced team of Quality Assurance experts also find it very useful to work with.

4.     Pliability: Azure DevOps is flexible in accommodating individual needs. It allows you to access their different services independently so that you do not have to acquire it if you do not require the full suite.

5.     Compatibility: Azure DevOps is compatible with almost every platform, including Linux, macOS and Windows. It also accommodates a wide range of programming languages from Android, C/C++, Node.js and Python to Java, PHP, Ruby, .NET, and iOS apps. In terms of cloud compatibility, Azure DevOps is functional on both AWS and GCP.

Comparison with similar products

In light of the comparison between Azure DevOps and other popular products available in the market, there are certain advantages that you get with Azure.

·      JIRA vs. Azure - If you look at JIRA, it certainly does come with some advantageous features like automatic notifications, customizable dashboards, etc. but it fails to live up to the project administration's efficiency, making lists of different versions, reporting etc.

·      Jenkins vs. Azure - If you consider Jenkins, even though it is user-friendly in its ease of use, it neither has the compatibility range of Azure not the support of its level.

·      TFS vs. Azure – While TFS has some outstanding features, it is a bit too expensive than Azure. TFS also falls short due to its not so intuitive test interface and a dashboard that is not as customizable as Azure DevOps.

·      GitLab vs. Azure – Many of you might prefer the features and benefits GitLab provides in terms of being an open-source tool. On the downside, GitLab fails to support external Git repos and other standard test formats and is not compatible in terms of integration and reporting with extensions and tools other than its own built-in Git repo.

While the above comparison does not prove Azure DevOps to be the perfect product, it has quite a few advantages when weighed against the most popular products of a similar category. One of the main benefits of Azure DevOps includes being a tool and technology-agnostic product that provides its users with ample flexibility. This tool also offers users end-to-end project support with its comprehensive suite of tools and features.