Preface

DevOps has become a real buzzword in recent years. DevOps is a combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high speed and with high quality. Azure DevOps is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform from Microsoft that provides an end-to-end set of tools for developing and deploying software by applying DevOps techniques. This book starts with an overview of the Azure DevOps platform before diving into various tools and features, such as boards for project management, repos for source control management, build and release pipelines, test plans, artifacts, and more.

After reading this book, you will have a complete and clear vision of what Azure DevOps can offer you to improve your development life cycle.

Who this book is for

This book is for solution developers/architects and project managers who want to apply DevOps techniques to their projects and use Azure DevOps to manage the entire process of developing applications of quality.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Azure DevOps Overview, gives you a full overview of the Azure DevOps features and toolsets, such as boards, repos, pipelines, test plans, and artifacts.

Chapter 2, Managing Projects with Azure DevOps Boards, explains the project management features of Azure DevOps in detail and shows you how to use boards and work items, how to create sprints, and how to manage backlogs and track all your activities.

Chapter 3, Source Code Management with Azure DevOps, explains how you can handle source control with the Azure DevOps Repos feature and Git. It shows you how to create repositories, how to handle commits, pushes, and pulls, how to handle branches, and more.

Chapter 4, Understanding Azure DevOps Pipelines, shows you how to create a build pipeline for your code with Azure Pipelines and how best to handle continuous integration.

Chapter 5, Running Quality Tests in a Build Pipeline, explains how to create and execute quality tests for your code in a build pipeline.

Chapter 6, Hosting Your Own Azure Pipeline Agent, shows you how to create your own build agents and use them in a build pipeline.

Chapter 7, Using Artifacts with Azure DevOps, explains how to use artifacts (package feeds) to create and share packages and add fully integrated package management to your continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines.

Chapter 8, Deploying Applications with Azure DevOps, explains how to use release pipelines to handle the continuous deployment of your code and how to use stages and approvals before releasing code into a production environment.

Chapter 9, Integrating Azure DevOps with GitHub, shows you how to integrate Azure DevOps tools with GitHub and use both applications for your continuous integration/continuous delivery processes.

Chapter 10, Using Test Plans with Azure DevOps, shows you how to manage your project's testing life cycle with test plans in Azure DevOps.

Chapter 11, Real-World CI/CD Scenarios with Azure DevOps, shows you some real-world scenarios of continuous integration/continuous delivery processes being handled with Azure DevOps.

To get the most out of this book

To follow the topics described in this book, you need to have a valid subscription with Azure DevOps. You can activate a free account by going to the following link:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/devops/

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you to avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Learning-Azure-DevOps---B16392. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781800563513_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: 'You can download the file named node-v6.12.3-x64.msi and install it using the interactive installer.'

A block of code is set as follows:

using System;
using PartsUnlimited.Models;
namespace AzureArtifacts
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine('Hello World!');
            CartItem caritem = new CartItem()

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Install-Module AzureRM -AllowClobber

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

docker run \
  -e VSTS_ACCOUNT=<name> \
  -e VSTS_TOKEN=<pat> \
  -it mcr.microsoft.com/azure-pipelines/vsts-agent

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: 'Log in with your Microsoft account and in the left menu, select Artifacts.'

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

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