The advent of Microsoft’s ‘Azure DevOps’ occurred due to the need to deliver products faster. Microsoft’s well-known integrated development environment, ‘Visual Studio Team Service (VSTS),’ finally unfolded into Azure DevOps and drastically changed the development cycle. The primary advantage of Azure DevOps, which also gained immense popularity, is its ability to be compatible with any application irrespective of platform, framework, or cloud.
Listed below are the key features that Azure DevOps services offer:
Azure Boards
Use agile tools that facilitate better monitoring, planning, and discussions among the team and allow for delivering higher-value products to the customers. Also, use productive tools that help create and track sprints, team dashboards, backlogs, and custom reporting.
Azure Pipelines
Through this feature, we can deploy, test, and develop CI/CD workflows that can sync with any platform, language, and cloud. This automation of builds and deployments with the pipelines not only saves valuable time but also gives space for innovation.
Azure Repos
With Azure Repos, we get access to the world’s largest repository that provides cloud-hosted private Git repositories in unlimited supply. Also, we can collaborate through advanced file management mechanisms and pull requests to build better codes.
Azure Test Plans
Azure test plans let us use exploratory and manual testing tools to proceed further. This activity helps improve the code quality in the applications.
Azure Artefacts
Azure artefacts are used to integrate all fully-integrated package management into CI\CD pipelines easily. Moreover, this allows for flexible hosting, creating, and sharing packages from private and public sources with the teams.
Now that we know some of the critical features that Azure DevOps consulting services offer, let’s look at the different kinds of Azure DevOps tools:
Continuous integration and delivery tools
Jenkins
Jenkins is an open-source server used to build apps in the cloud and then deploy them in Azure. Users can base Jenkins in Azure to centralise the build automation and scale the development in sync with the project’s requirements. Furthermore, Jenkins helps set up continuous delivery or integration for software projects.
Configuration management and infrastructure automation tools
Ansible
Ansible is a tool that allows users to automate application deployments, configuration management, and cloud provisioning. It also enables the provisioning of containers, networks, virtual machines, and entire cloud infrastructures. Besides that, users are further allowed to automate the configuration and deployment of the resources available.
Chef Automate
This tool will enable users to manage, build and deploy the infrastructure, the applications involved, and the team. Therefore, it allows for greater transparency across the workflow while enabling consistent management and compliance with every reform within the framework.
Puppet Enterprise
Puppet Enterprise automates the entire lifecycle of the Azure infrastructure for both on-premise and cloud. It also enables easy adoption of DevOps by letting us manage infrastructure as a code. Moreover, Puppet enterprise permits the provisioning, configuring, and handling of Azure resources.
Terraform
Terraform is a cloud infrastructure provisioning tool that helps organise infrastructure into configuration files. It configures those files to define the arrangement of the cloud resources, including storage accounts, virtual machines, and networking interfaces.
Improved agility will in the development lifecycle foster better product delivery. Thus, the work of an effective Azure Cloud consulting service is to guide the development cycle quickly and responsively.
Below is a list of some of the most effective Azure DevOps service offerings.
Governance
Deploying the right tools, team, skill sets, and strategies are essential to the success of DevOps. Thus, consulting services should attempt to establish efficient product and system development teams through effective governance.
Planning and work management
Effective consulting services include helping in establishing work activities, teams, and processes best suited for the given DevOp environment.
Seamless interface
Azure DevOps is connected with other development specialisations like data, apps, integrations, and other testing activities. It is the work of the consulting service to integrate these complex activities seamlessly with the DevOps pipeline.
Release management
Release management can seem daunting and complicated as DevOps brings more speed to the software. But an effective consulting service will allow for tailoring of the release management process to be at par with other DevOps methodologies.
Conclusion
Transitioning to modern DevOps is not an easy task and might be very daunting to navigate through. Therefore, it is crucial to take the help of consulting services that fully understand the different elements of Azure DevOps and choose the best-suited options for the business.
