As a software company, you need to prove yourself daily in today's competitive and ever-changing market. Fast time-to-market and continuous adaptation to end-user needs are essential for success. But how do you achieve this? Discover how DevOps can help you and unlock the power of Azure DevOps.
Reading time 5 minutes Published: 29 August 2019 Latest update: 18 March 2025
In this article, we will provide you with more information about what Azure DevOps is, covering the following topics:
4. The Difference between DevOps and Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps is a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) platform offering from Microsoft including a suite of tools and service to help DevOps teams deploy, manage and maintain production environments efficiently.
But what does DevOps mean exactly? Let's break it down:
DevOps is the collaboration between software development (Dev) and production management (Ops). It revolves around the close interaction between developers and operational teams. It's more than just a software development methodology.
DevOps builds upon the core principles of Agile: the focus on individuals, interactions, and collaboration.
The significant difference is that DevOps extends this approach throughout the entire organization, rather than solely within the development process.
Therefore, DevOps can best be described as a culture within an organization that relies on three pillars:
DevOps enables people and teams to work and collaborate more effectively by incorporating human and cultural aspects. The line of separation between previously isolated disciplines and different teams is eliminated.
People, processes, and technologies come together, enabling continuous value delivery to your customers and end-users. Learn more how to start with DevOps and its benefits.
The DevOps model, also known as the DevOps lifecycle, consists of eight phases: plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate, and monitor. These phases are traversed by cross-functional teams to deliver new software rapidly. Let's delve deeper into some important development steps.
In this phase, activities are continuously identified and monitored visually (e.g., with Kanban and Agile). Consequently, all stakeholders have a clear picture of the team’s capacities and tasks can be easily distributed and prioritized.
The software for delivery is split into multiple sprints or short development cycles. Code is shared with the aid of a version control system such as Git.
In this phase, new code is tested for bugs. The quality assurance (QA) team safeguards the quality of the software and tests its capability of satisfying the requirements in different test environments. The validated code can then be safely and continuously integrated with the master branch. Testing for bugs early on allows them to be rectified quickly and easily. DevOps orchestration is essential here to coordinate automated tasks and ensure workflows run smoothly.
Suggested read: What is DevSecOps?
Once the new version of the software has been tested and validated, it can be transferred to the production environment. This begins with implementation of the new code on the servers and results in the ultimate production or deployment. This way, end users have direct access to new functions.
Once the new software goes live, the operations team can use monitoring to obtain information about the performance and usage patterns of the app. The operations team monitors the occurrence of bugs and other problems during usage of the software.
Security tools for Azure DevOps can help enhance monitoring by ensuring secure processes across development stages.
Data are collected with an eye to future developments, which can in turn be picked up by the development team.
As you know, Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform – a collection of services offered by Microsoft from its data centers.
One of those services is Azure DevOps (previously VSTS), an environment that incorporates a range of services designed to ensure easy integration of DevOps within your organization.
You can add to the Azure DevOps services with the tools of your choice. So, whether you’re a Java, Node, or .Net developer or work in Jenkins, Ansible, or Puppet, Azure DevOps allows you to set up your end-to-end DevOps chain yourself.
Suggested read: TFS to DevOps migration for those considering a switch from TFS.
If you’d like to know more about the various Azure DevOps Services and how they can be of value to your company, join our free Azure DevOps Workshop.
I want to join the WorkshopOnce you have installed Azure DevOps, it’s time to delve a little deeper into the services that are available. Your organization can use:
These services have been designed to work perfectly together or to be used individually. The following outlines the nature of the various services and the value they may hold for your organisation.
1. Azure BoardsAzure Boards allows your team to manage software projects with ease. A tool like this is indispensable for a proper overview and good collaboration. You can schedule and track activities with scrum and Kanban boards, adjustable dashboards, backlogs, and reports – and all at lightning speed thanks to drag and drop functionality. You can plan your sprints within a workflow that best suits your team, as well as distribute tasks, schedule meetings, and increase the transparency of progress from the idea through to release.
Aside from Azure DevOps, Azure Boards is the best tool for managing software projects thanks to the numerous integration options available. If you’re already using GitHub, you can choose to link GitHub repositories to Azure Boards.
In addition, Azure Boards is often used as a project management tool for the operations department. For instance, you can use it to manage tickets and customer inquiries and to manage content and documentation.
2. Azure PipelinesAzure Pipelines is an indispensable tool for software development. It is a cloud service that enables automatic building, testing, and deployment of code. As Azure Pipelines uses CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery), you can test and send code continuously and consistently. All that you need is a version management system such as Azure Repos or GitHub.
Azure Pipelines works for virtually any programming language, platform, and cloud. As with Azure Boards, Azure Pipelines offers a robust link to GitHub, so whether your project is open source or hosted by Microsoft, you are assured a rapid, easy, and secure solution for your software development.
3. Azure ReposAzure Repos is a tool recommended for code management and is based on the Git version management system. Git is a piece of software that keeps track of changes to the code over time. It takes "snapshots" of all of your files, so that you can recall them whenever you need to. Azure Repos gives you unlimited Git storage.
In addition, you can also guarantee the quality of your code with branch policies, requiring, for example, for all code to be assessed first by a certain number of reviewers. This shared responsibility ensures better cooperation and a joint pursuit of the very highest quality. So, if you’re working on a project with a number of different people and using CI/CD pipelines (or a similar utility), Azure Repos really is indispensable.
4. Azure Test PlansAzure Test Plans is a test management solution that enables you to carry out manual and exploratory tests, such as tests based on user stories. These can be fetched directly from Azure Boards, so that tests and bugs are automatically linked to requirements. In addition, Test Plans collates feedback from stakeholders involved in the project.
If you’re just beginning to start with Azure DevOps, Azure Test Plans is the best tool for evaluating and improving the quality of your product.
5. Azure ArtifactsAzure Artifacts is a package management platform. It allows you to create, host, and share code packages with your team from both public and private sources. A significant advantage over similar tools is that Maven, NuGet, NPM, and Python packages can be saved together. Source packages are saved securely to your feed, allowing you to add them to your pipeline with ease.
Azure Artifacts is a valuable addition to your tool kit, giving your team greater overview and allowing them to work and collaborate more efficiently. In addition, you can share code packages with multiple teams, avoiding work duplicates and allowing you to switch even faster.
In addition to the various Services, there is also the Extensions Marketplace. This allows you to fully personalize and organize Azure DevOps according to the wishes of your organization.
Our certified experts will help you set up, migrate, and support your journey with Azure DevOps, so you can focus on building great software.
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