Concepts

DevOps 101

DevOps is a set of cultural practices related software development
DevOps is a combination of tools, people and practice to increase collaboration in order to deliver values to the end user quickly & efficiently
Details: /explain/devops

Azure DevOps is a DevOps platform from Microsoft that provides a tools and services for DevOps related processes
Azure DevOps is a comprehensive set of collaboration tools and services, designed to help development teams plan, build, test, and deploy applications efficiently
Azure DevOps is:
- a DevOps toolchain and orchestration platform
- language, platform and cloud provider agnostic
Azure DevOps (Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server) is rebranded version of Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)
Azure DevOps comprises a range of services covering the full development life-cycle and enables DevOps capabilities

Azure DevOps has two offerings:

Cloud offering
- Known as “Azure DevOps Services”
- Cloud hosted verson of Azure DevOps Server managed by Microsoft
On-premises offering
- Known as “Azure DevOps Server”
- Azure DevOps Server is a Microsoft product that covers the entire application lifecycle, and enables DevOps capabilities
See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/user-guide/about-azure-devops-services-tfs?view=azure-devops

A project represents a container for organizing work related to a specific software development effort, application, or team
Projects are created within an Azure DevOps organization
Projects provide a way to manage and collaborate on different development initiatives while maintaining a level of isolation from other projects within the same organization
Details: Azure DevOps project

Azure Repos provides version control for source code management
It supports both Git and Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC), allowing developers to collaborate on code changes, track history, and manage branches effectively
Details: Azure DevOps repos

A DevOps pipeline is a set of automated processes and tools that allows developers (Dev) and operations professionals (Ops) to collaborate on
Azure Pipelines is a robust continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service. It enables teams to automate the build, test, and deployment of applications across different platforms and environments
There 2 types of pipelines: YAML pipeline & Classic (UI based) Pipeline (classic pipeline is deprecated in favor of YAML)
Details: YAML pipeline

An agent is computing infrastructure with installed agent software that runs one job at a time
Instead of managing each agent individually, agents are organizied into agent pools
In Azure Pipelines, pools are scoped to the entire organization (so that agent machines can be shared across projects)
An agent is registered with a single pool
When a pipeline is created, which pool the pipeline will use must be specified

Pipeline Agent

Underlaying VM that executes the pipeline job (workload)
Types of Agent:
- Microsoft Hosted
  - Microsoft-hosted agents that run Windows and Linux images are provisioned on Azure general purpose virtual machines
  - Maintenance and upgrades are taken care of for you
  - Each time you run a pipeline, you get a fresh virtual machine. The virtual machine is discarded after one use
  - Microsoft-hosted agents can run jobs directly on the VM or in a container
  - Azure Pipelines provides a pre-defined agent pool named Azure Pipelines with Microsoft-hosted agents
  - See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/hosted?view=azure-devops
- Self Hosted: An agent that you set up and manage on your own to run jobs
Links:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/agents
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/scale-set-agents?view=azure-devops

Boards in Azure DevOps is the management hub of the project
Board is an project management tool that allows teams to plan, track, and discuss work across the entire development process
It provides features like backlogs, sprint planning, task tracking, and customizable dashboards to aid in project planning and collaboration
Details: Azure DevOps boards

An artifact is a collection of files or packages published by a run
Artifacts are made available to subsequent tasks i.e deployment (release pipeline)
Details: Azure DevOps artifacts

Azure Test Plans is a comprehensive testing solution that enables teams to plan, track, and manage tests
It supports manual and automated testing, allowing teams to ensure the quality and reliability of their software
Details: Azure DevOps test plans