Microsoft Azure DevOps? Start Here!

Are you excited to start exploring Azure DevOps? Or are you studying for Microsoft Azure DevOps AZ-400 certification? Or even just curious to test the features of Azure DevOps? In any case, I have good news!

Besides, if you already worked with Visual Studio Team System — also known as VSTS — in the past, the news is even better!

That’s because Microsoft Azure DevOps is the evolution of the Visual Studio Team System, also known as VSTS.

It is Microsoft’s SaaS offering for a set of tools and features for the development pipeline, the Products pillar of Microsoft on their DevOps definition:

DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to your end users — Donovan Brown, Microsoft

Important note: Azure DevOps, besides the name, is not a service offered by Azure, and you don’t depend on having an Azure account to use it.

Azure DevOps Services

The Azure DevOps includes the services Azure Board, Azure Repo, Azure Pipelines, Azure Artifacts, and Azure Test Plans. Microsoft offers a free tier of Azure DevOps on its basic plan up to 5 users, which includes all the tools, except Azure Test Plans.

Full pricing tiers for Microsoft Azure DevOps can be found on the following link:

Azure Boards

Azure Boards is the service for tracking the backlog. Create and track work items, plan sprints, define dashboards, measure, and so on.

Azure Repos

Azure Repos is the service for the source code repository. It supports Git and TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control).

It supports any Git client and integrations via REST API and webhooks.

Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines is the service to automate builds and deployments with tasks and reproducible steps for consistency of CI/CD pipeline stages.

Azure Test Plans

Azure Test Plans is the service to create and execute test plans, improving the quality of the code and validating results throughout the pipeline, with end-to-end traceability.

Azure Artifacts

Azure Artifacts is the service for package repository. It supports Maveen, NPM, NugGet, and Phyton feeds

The services mentioned are fully integrated. However, it is possible to use only the pieces you want, integrating them into a current tool already in use, if this is the case. For example, you don’t need to use Azure Repos, if you already have your repositories on GitHub, and you can keep using your Nexus Repository Manager, instead of Azure Artifacts.

Create an Azure DevOps Account

To create your Azure DevOps account, go to https://dev.azure.com. You have the option to start with your GitHub account.

As soon as the account created is possible to start using the services and navigating through them.

I suggest creating an organization specifically for your trials and study. Refer to the following article, by Josef Zweck, about the creation of organizations in Azure DevOps:

Demo Generator

But starting from scratch and trying the services can be challenging and with a lot of work to create a board, fill up with work items, create a repository and upload source code, create new build and deployment pipelines.

To skip this step and put us at a fast pace, Microsoft made available a Demo Generator.

The demo generates a whole project, with preloaded items on all services that will save a lot of time.

Access the Azure DevOps Demo Generator Page

Go to the URL https://azuredevopsdemogenerator.azurewebsites.net/ and click on “Sign In.”

The Demo Generator will request permissions on your Azure DevOps environment. After granting the permissions, enter a name for your project. You can also select the template you want.

This possibility of selecting the template allows you to choose between different methodologies, Agile and Scrum, for example, and various technologies. You can also create multiple projects based on different templates to try different possibilities.

The templates might require specific extensions from the marketplace. You can install the necessary extensions by clicking on them. After installing the extensions needed, you are good to proceed with the creation of the demo project. After finished, just click on navigate to the project.

Take your time and navigate on your new project. You will notice that you have content on the services, such as source code on the repository.

Try, for example, to execute a pipeline!

Note that, however, some tasks, such as deployment, might fail because it requires a real environment for deployment. It’s an excellent opportunity to create a free trial account on Azure and provision the resources, configuring the parameters of the deployment for this environment.

What’s Next?

If you want to go deep on training scenarios, visit Azure DevOps Labs with several scenarios on all services offered by Azure DevOps:

Also, follow AzureDevOps on twitter, where they share the new features, provide tips and tricks, how-to’s, labs, and much more.

And don’t forget to comment, react if you liked, and follow me on twitter @mrmarrocos.