We talked a little bit about Azure services in the context of business. Now we want to tell you something about Azure DevOps service as well as Azure DevOps server. What are pros and cons of this service, something about the features we have here, and many more.
DevOps is a software development methodology that emphasizes collaboration, automation, and continuous delivery. While DevOps has many benefits, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider. Here are some of the pros and cons of DevOps:
Azure DevOps was launched as a service in October 2018. It is a Microsoft SaaS platform providing a comprehensive set of DevOps tools for software deployment and development. It is integrated with most of the popular tools and extensions that are already available on the market – such as Slack, Campfire, UserVoice, and Trello.
DevOps supports a culture of collaboration. What does it mean? In this case, DevOps brings developers, employees, and ADLs to work on software together. This option enables efficient work scheduling, code collaboration, as well as simpler application building and development. DevOps gives two options: working in the cloud using Azure DevOps services and working directly without the cloud using an Azure DevOps server.
As for Azure DevOps services and Azure DevOps server, they previously existed simply as Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS for short). Azure DevOps services themselves include several interesting features, which we will discuss today, and these include Azure Pipelines, Azure Artifacts, Azure Boards, and Azure Repos.
The basic plan for open-source projects and smaller ones are free for up to 5 users, but if you need to form a larger team, the price will be up to $30 for 10 people, up to $90 for 20, and so on – monthly.
With Azure DevOps, you have the ability to centrally host and manage your code, even if you only have a collection of VB or PowerShell scripts. No matter if you use GIT or Team Foundation Version Control to version your code, Azure DevOps makes it easy.
However, if you don’t have any code, you can coordinate your systems using work items. You can freely model work items around the Agile Framework and divide complex systems into workloads that are easily managed.
AzureDevops will provide a robust platform to deploy your solutions and continuous integration. In addition, it supports the use of multi-vendor services and has extensive integration with professional tools. Surprisingly, Microsoft has always been a leader in promoting collaboration with its competitors – so it has various extensions to take care of customers’ needs.
Azure DevOps services is a cloud-based service and offers many great tools to improve project collaboration, as well as help during software development.
With all of these services, you can benefit from an integrated package that will provide you with the necessary functions to operate. However, because the services are divided into individual components, each user can choose a specific feature for himself, if he needs one or two, he doesn’t have to use the whole package and will save money at the same time.
What are these magical features? Let’s learn something about them.
Boards
Azure Boards is a tool for managing tasks and planning them. It exists in the form of an electronic board using Scrum and Kanban methods, so it is similar to Jira. With Boards, you can track the entire process of sprints or overall plans, as well as report on progress. Generally speaking, it is an Agile toolkit. However, if you are unfamiliar with the tool and don’t adjust the configuration to your working model, the activities can become very rough. Of course, after proper optimization, you can do many things.
The pros of Azure Boards
Pipelines
Azure Pipelines is a CI/CD platform that supports containers and Kubernetes and is language/cloud independent. It provides services to set up automated build and deployment processes for applications. You can also use a function called an agent. What exactly is it about? It is a special feature that runs the tasks defined in your pipeline. In simpler terms, it will run tasks for you. This will give you more control over software installation.
The pros of Azure Pipelines
Repos
Azure Repos is responsible for providing private GIT or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC for short) repositories that are stored in the cloud and help with code source control. In simpler terms, it is a mechanism that supports pull requests, as well as comments, and can be used as a cool tool for code review.
The pros of Azure Repos
Artifacts
Azure Artifacts is the integrated management of packages such as NMP, Python, Maven, and NuGet, as well as many others from private and public sources. It allows you to integrate package sharing into your pipelines. By having a private source for packages, you can use it as a proxy with public repositories. What can it give you? First, if a package disappears from the network, there will still be a copy of it on your server. The second thing is that the pipelines will run much faster because you will have packages available locally.
The pros of Azure Artifacts
Test Plans
Azure Test Plans helps manage exploratory, continuous, or manual testing and provides a browser extension to collect feedback from business partners.
The pros of Azure Test Plans
Now let’s look at the advantages of Azure DevOps and see a brief overview:
Every technology has pros and cons. Let’s take a look at the disadvantages of Azure DevOps:
Azure DevOps server, also known as TFS, or Team Foundation Server, is an option outside the cloud, that is, for internal use within a company. It is the deal that companies choose when they need their data to stay in their network. It is based on SQL, which gives you access to reporting services. In addition, you can use the DevOps server for project management, testing, and application development.
Azure DevOps server brings many benefits such as code repository, project management, quality checking, and cognitive services, among others. Let’s learn more about some of them:
If you’re looking for a path of faster software development processes and you want to unify teams or technologies, then you should try working with Azure DevOps. Lots of rich features can be a good option for many companies, and you should check it out by yourself.
If you want to know something about e-shop optimization on cloud, check our case study!
Hicron’s contributions have been vital in making our product ready for commercialization. Their commitment to excellence, innovative solutions, and flexible approach were key factors in our successful collaboration.
I wholeheartedly recommend Hicron to any organization seeking a strategic long-term partnership, reliable and skilled partner for their technological needs.
After carefully evaluating suppliers, we decided to try a new approach and start working with a near-shore software house. Cooperation with Hicron Software House was something different, and it turned out to be a great success that brought added value to our company.
With HICRON’s creative ideas and fresh perspective, we reached a new level of our core platform and achieved our business goals.
Many thanks for what you did so far; we are looking forward to more in future!
Hicron is a partner who has provided excellent software development services. Their talented software engineers have a strong focus on collaboration and quality. They have helped us in achieving our goals across our cloud platforms at a good pace, without compromising on the quality of our services. Our partnership is professional and solution-focused!
The IT system supporting the work of retail outlets is the foundation of our business. The ability to optimize and adapt it to the needs of all entities in the PSA Group is of strategic importance and we consider it a step into the future. This project is a huge challenge: not only for us in terms of organization, but also for our partners – including Hicron – in terms of adapting the system to the needs and business models of PSA. Cooperation with Hicron consultants, taking into account their competences in the field of programming and processes specific to the automotive sector, gave us many reasons to be satisfied.
