You're reading from Azure Stack Hub Demystified

Product typeBook

Published inOct 2021

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781801078603

Edition1st Edition

Tools

Azure Azure

Concepts

Service Oriented Architecture

Author (1)

Richard Young

Chapter 6: Considering DevOps in Azure Stack Hub

In this chapter, we are going to cover one of the use cases that are seeing an increase in the adoption of Azure Stack Hub, and that is DevOps. DevOps refers to the practice of operations and development engineers participating together in the entire service life cycle, from design, through the development process, to production support. We will explain what DevOps is from a Microsoft standpoint and how this is supported in Azure Stack Hub.

We will explain how Azure Stack Hub can be used to give you the ability to stand up a hybrid continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. We will ensure that by the end of this chapter, you have a clear understanding and knowledge of DevOps with Azure Stack Hub.

We will cover the following topics in detail in this chapter:

Introducing concepts and practices
Reviewing DevOps on Azure Stack Hub
Understanding the DevOps ecosystem
Overviewing testing and metrics...

Introducing concepts and practices

The best place to start with DevOps is to answer the question: What is DevOps? DevOps is more than just about technology—it is also about people and processes. In fact, Microsoft explains DevOps as a union of people, processes, and technology, to enable CD of value to your end users. The following diagram gives a good pictorial representation of this statement:

Figure 6.1 – What is DevOps explained

The preceding diagram demonstrates CD, starting with planning and tracking. It moves through development and testing, is released or deployed, and is then monitored as it is in operation. This process repeats as applications are updated over time. The people, processes, and technologies you see in each step are what make up DevOps.

There are seven key practices that make up the primary steps to adopting DevOps, regardless of the technology stack that is used. These seven primary steps are listed here:

Infrastructure...

Reviewing DevOps on Azure Stack Hub

Azure Stack Hub is a cloud-based system, and cloud-based systems ease the adoption of DevOps practices. DevOps is made easier with Azure Stack Hub, especially for the following practices:

Self-service
CD
IaC

Azure Stack Hub accomplishes this with a broad ecosystem of tooling, which we will cover in detail in the next section.

Traditional on-premises workflows build and define infrastructure separately from the software, which invariably leads to multiple back and forth between the IT department defining the infrastructure and the developers writing the code that runs on the infrastructure.

This disconnect between IT departments and developers leads to multiple handoffs between them, which in turn leads to longer development cycles and potential downtime for developers while releases are handled by the IT department.

With on-premises deployments, the code is generally written for a specific platform, which leads to...

Understanding the DevOps ecosystem

In this section, we are going to look at the ecosystem offered by Microsoft to support DevOps with Azure Stack Hub.

Microsoft offer a myriad tools and processes, both from their own brand but also from multiple partners, which cover the full range of DevOps activities, from development through deployment, to monitoring in production.

If we begin with development from the developer's workstation, then Microsoft provides Visual Studio for writing the code and Azure DevOps Server for their source control, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 6.10 – Microsoft development tools

Azure DevOps Server was previously known as Team Foundation Server (TFS) and is a set of collaborative software development tools, hosted on-premises. It integrates with an existing integrated development environment (IDE) or editors such as Visual Studio.

This environment is familiar to developers who already write applications...

Overviewing testing and metrics for DevOps

When Azure Stack Hub is used with Azure DevOps Server during the development life cycle with DevOps, then this brings into play the functionality within Azure DevOps Server for planned manual testing, UAT, exploratory testing, and getting feedback from stakeholders.

Planned manual testing involves creating test plans and test suites that can be run by testers manually against a release of code in a test environment.

UAT takes this a step further, as real users verify that the functionality delivered by an application matches the requirements they have designated and works as designed.

Exploratory testing is testing that is generally undertaken by the development team with no set test plans and is more about exploring the functionality of the software.

Stakeholder testing is testing undertaken by users outside of the development team who will offer feedback on the functionality and usability of an application. This is normally done...

Summary

In this chapter, we have taken a look through DevOps and how it relates to Azure Stack Hub. We started with an understanding of key concepts and practices for DevOps. We then walked through the DevOps process in Azure Stack Hub, including IaC and CD. We then looked at the rich DevOps ecosystem provided by Azure Stack Hub, which incorporates tooling from Microsoft and a myriad partners.

We then finally looked at the DevOps testing and metrics provided for Azure Stack Hub through the use of Azure DevOps Server. This chapter has taught us everything we need to know about DevOps in Azure Stack Hub, which is a driving force in the uptake of Azure Stack Hub in many organizations.

We will now move on to look at the features in Azure Stack Hub, starting in the next chapter, where we cover ARM templates, so please join me there.

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Published in: Oct 2021Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781801078603

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Author (1)

Richard Young

Richard Young has been working in IT for over 35 years and is currently a principal consultant in the professional services division of Lenovo Global Technologies, covering EMEA. He works closely with customers to assist them in their journey to the cloud with a focus on hybrid cloud, especially focused on Microsoft Azure. His role covers both the strategy and deployment of hybrid cloud using Microsoft Azure Stack Hub and Azure Stack HCI. He holds both MCSE and MCSA certifications for Azure. He holds the MCPD certification for .NET development for the cloud, from back when he was a developer. He has been involved in multiple deployments of Azure Stack Hub throughout Europe over the last few years. He is a husband, father, and grandfather.
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