Antony Kervazo-Canut

Azure DevOps
for
Teenagers
SUITABLE FOR ADULTS
 Antony Kervazo-Canut

Introduction
Azure DevOps is the result of the evolution of several generations of
Microsoft's software development tools, now offering a robust
platform that integrates DevOps practices with Microsoft's cloud
ecosystem.

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS): Launched in 2005, it was

Microsoft's first offering for integrated software development,
the direct precursor to TFS and Azure DevOps. Team Foundation
Server (TFS): Stemming from VSTS, TFS provided a complete On
Premise solution.
Visual Studio Online (VSO): With the advent of the cloud, TFS
evolved into VSO in 2013, offering the same features in an online
version, facilitating access and flexibility.
Azure DevOps: In 2018, VSO was renamed Azure DevOps,
integrating more deeply with Azure services and reinforcing
Microsoft's commitment to DevOps practices. This version marks
a more coherent and integrated offering for modern software
development.
Azure DevOps Server: Concurrently, the latest version of TFS was
renamed Azure DevOps Server, providing an on-site option for
those who prefer it, while staying in sync with Azure DevOps
cloud services.

Azure DevOps is divided into several main services:

Azure Boards: Work tracking and project management.

Azure Repos: Version control with Git.
Azure Pipelines: CI/CD for all languages and platforms.
Azure Test Plans: Manual and automated testing.
Azure Artifacts: Sharing Maven, npm, and NuGet packages.
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Get Azure DevOps

To start your journey with Azure DevOps, the first step is to create an
account and set up your workspace.

dev.azure.com

Visit the Azure DevOps site and click on "Start free".

Sign in or create a Microsoft account: If you already have a Microsoft

account (Outlook, Office 365, etc.), sign in with it. Otherwise, create a
new account.

Create your Azure DevOps organization: Once signed in, you will be
prompted to create a new organization. Give it a unique name that
represents your team, project, or even your company.

Set up your first project: After creating your organization, create

your first project by giving it a name and choosing its visibility
(private or public).
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Organization &
Projects
In Azure DevOps, an Organization is the primary level of structure
for managing your projects, users, and software development
resources in a shared environment. It serves as a container for your
Azure DevOps projects and provides a framework for team
collaboration, security management, and integration with other
Azure services.

You can have multiple projects within an organization, each

configured with its own settings, permissions, and team members.
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Wiki
The Wiki in Azure DevOps is an integrated collaborative tool that
allows teams to create, share, and manage project documentation
directly within their Azure DevOps workspace. It is designed to
capture and organize project knowledge, facilitate communication
among team members, and serve as a central repository for
important project information.

Azure DevOps has the advantage of having a global wiki for a project,
but also of gathering all the documentation contained in your
projects directly in the Wiki section.
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Azure Boards
Azure Boards is an Azure DevOps service
that offers comprehensive tools for agile
planning, work tracking, and project
management. It allows teams to track the
progress of their projects through Kanban
boards, backlogs, sprints, and reports.

Hierarchy: Azure Boards allows organizing work items into a

hierarchy, helping to visualize the relationships between Epics,
Features, User Stories, and Tasks. This structure facilitates planning
and tracking at different levels of abstraction.

Statuses: Each work item goes through various statuses that

represent its progress, such as "New", "Active", "Resolved", and
"Closed". You can customize the status workflow to fit your
development process.

Tags and Filters: Use tags to categorize work items and filter them to
facilitate searching and organizing. Filters can be based on criteria
such as work item type, status, assignee, and more.
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Process Boards
Azure DevOps supports different types of work processes to adapt to
the specific methodologies of a team or project. These processes
define the framework for work items, boards, and workflows in
Azure Boards, offering a set of templates suited to various project
management approaches. The main types of processes available in
Azure DevOps are: Agile, Scrum, CMMI, and Basic.

Agile
Designed for teams following the agile methodology, emphasizing
iterative and incremental development cycles, and a high
responsiveness to changes.
Main Work Items: Epics, Features, User Stories, Tasks, Bugs.

Scrum
Suited for teams using the Scrum framework, a subcategory of the
agile methodology focused on fixed sprints, sprint reviews, and daily
stand-ups.
Main Work Items: Epics, Features, Backlog Items, Tasks, Bugs.

CMMI
Oriented towards teams that apply more formal and structured
project management approaches, with an emphasis on continuous
process improvement.
Main Work Items: Requirements, Change Requests, Defects, Tasks.

Basic
A simplified framework, with a minimal set of work item types. It's a
good option for small teams or projects that don't need the
formalities of the Agile, Scrum, or CMMI frameworks.
Main Work Items: Epics, Tasks, Bugs.
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Work Items
Azure Boards offers different types of
work items to suit various project needs
and methodologies. The basic types
include:

Bug: Used to track issues, errors, or

bugs in the software. Bugs can be
linked to specific User Stories for
easy tracking.

Epic: Represents a large block of work that can be broken down

into several features. Epics are often used to track work across
multiple sprints or even product releases.
Feature: Used to define a functionality or a set of functionalities
under an Epic. A feature is usually delivered over several sprints.
Task: Represents a specific unit of work needed to complete a User
Story or a Feature. Tasks are often assigned to individuals for
execution.
User Story (or simply "Story"): Describes a functionality from the
end-user's perspective. Stories are smaller work items than
features and aim to deliver value to the user.
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Work Items

Comments and Attachments: Team members can leave comments

on work items and attach files or images to provide more context
or share resources.
Links and Integrations: Azure Boards allows linking work items
to each other (for example, linking a Task to a User Story) or to
other elements like code commits, pull requests, and builds in
Azure Repos and Azure Pipelines. This creates a complete and
integrated audit trail of project activity.
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Kanban
Kanban is a project and workflow management method that aims to
improve the efficiency and flexibility of work processes. Originating
from Japan and initially developed by Toyota in the 1940s to optimize
its manufacturing processes, the Kanban method has since been
adopted in many other fields, including software development and IT
project management, thanks to its simplicity and effectiveness.
Azure Boards integrates the Kanban system into its features,
allowing software development teams to manage their projects in an
agile and visual manner.

The implementation of Kanban in Azure Boards allows development

teams to maximize their productivity, optimize their processes, and
achieve faster and more reliable value delivery to their customers.

With this in mind, it's possible to link a commit in a repository to a

ticket.
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Sprints
Sprints in Azure Boards are an integral part of agile project
management, allowing teams to plan, execute, and track work in
defined time intervals, called sprints. This feature is essential for
teams adopting agile methodologies such as Scrum, as it helps to
organize work into manageable batches, keeps the team focused on
short-term goals, and provides continuous and incremental product
improvements.

Set your iterations: In the settings of your Azure DevOps project,

define the structure of your iterations. You can create a hierarchy of
iterations (for example, by dividing them by year, quarter, etc.) and
specify the duration of each sprint.

Plan the work: Assign work items to specific sprints by setting the
iteration for each work item. You can do this by dragging and
dropping items into the iteration backlog or by modifying the
iteration in the work item details.
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Dashboard &
Widgets
Dashboards in Azure Boards offer a customizable and interactive
view of various aspects of your project, thanks to the use of widgets.
These widgets can display a wide range of information from work
progress status, bug tracking, results of the latest builds or
deployments, to custom metrics important to the team. Here's a more
detailed overview of some key widgets available in Azure Boards and
how they can be used to improve the visibility and tracking of your
projects.
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Delivery Plan
The Delivery Plan is a powerful extension for Azure Boards that
provides a calendar view to visualize work across multiple teams and
projects. It assists organizations in understanding how work aligns
with delivery schedules, facilitating the planning and tracking of
dependencies between teams. This view allows managers and teams
to stay synchronized on objectives and delivery timelines, while
identifying potential risks and bottlenecks at an early stage.

The Delivery Plan is an essential tool for project managers, team

leaders, and stakeholders looking to have a comprehensive
understanding of project delivery in an Agile environment. It
provides the necessary insights to make informed decisions, manage
resources effectively, and achieve delivery objectives within the
planned timelines.
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Azure Repos
Azure Repos is a set of version control
hosting services that allows you to
manage your source code in the cloud. It
is part of Microsoft's Azure DevOps suite
and offers two main types of version
control: Git, a distributed version control
system, and Team Foundation Version
Control (TFVC), a centralized version
control system. Here's a simplified
overview of what you need to know
about Azure Repos and how to use it to
manage your code.

Git Repositories: Azure Repos provides unlimited Git hosting,

supporting collaborative development workflows. This includes
features such as code reviews, feature branches, and pull requests to
facilitate collaboration and code management.

TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control): For those who prefer a

centralized version control model, TFVC allows tracking changes in
the code, maintaining version histories, and working on large
projects with many dependencies.
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Security and
Permissions
Azure Repos uses a role-based permission system that allows you to
finely control access to your repositories. Permissions can be
assigned at different levels, including:

Project Level: You can set permissions that apply to all repos
within an Azure DevOps project. This is useful for configuring
project-wide roles, such as project administrators who need
access to all repos.
Repository Level: Permissions can also be specifically set for each
repository, allowing you to customize access based on the needs
of each team or project. This includes controlling who can read,
write, or manage the repository.
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Security and
Permissions
Branch Level: Azure Repos allows setting branch policies that can
restrict changes to certain branches, require code reviews for pull
requests, or enforce validation builds. This helps to protect important
branches, like the main or release branches.
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Pull Request
Pull requests in Azure Repos are a central mechanism to facilitate
collaboration and code review within development teams using Git.
They allow developers to notify team members that they have
completed changes in a branch and request that these changes be
integrated (or "merged") into the main branch or any other target
branch. Here is a detailed overview of pull requests and their use in
Azure Repos.
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Pull Request
Code Reviews: Pull requests provide a framework for code reviews,
where peers can comment and suggest changes before the code is
integrated. This helps maintain code quality and share knowledge
within the team.

Continuous Integration: With the integration of Azure Pipelines, you

can set up automatic builds for pull requests, ensuring the code
passes all tests and checks before merging.

Branch Policies: You can apply branch policies to pull requests to

require code reviews, successful builds, or other criteria before code
can be merged, reinforcing quality standards.

Automation: Pull requests can trigger automated workflows, such as

closing associated tasks in Azure Boards once the pull request is
completed.
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Pull Request
Tip :
If a specific part of the code has been touched, you can
automatically include a reviewer or a specific team to validate the
Pull Request.

This technique can be used for triggering pipelines. Thus, certain

tests, certain builds can be performed specifically only if certain
parts of the source code are touched.
A greater separation that can save time on builds, or improve
security and processes by only including individuals who are
actually necessary for a review.
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Azure Pipelines
Azure DevOps has undergone several evolutions in terms of pipelines,
reflecting changes in software development practices and
Continuous Integration (CI) / Continuous Delivery (CD). Here is a brief
history of the different types of pipelines used over time in Azure
DevOps (formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and
Team Foundation Server (TFS)):

XAML Pipelines, first generation, using XAML for configuration.

Complex and difficult to manage.
Classic Pipelines, configuration via a user interface without
scripts. Accessible, easy to use.
YAML Pipelines, configuration "as code" in YAML files. Flexible,
versionable, and promote collaboration.

Azure DevOps still supports classic pipelines and XAML pipelines

(although the latter is at the end of its life), but strongly encourages
the use of YAML pipelines for most new projects.
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External Sources
Creating a pipeline in Azure Pipelines is a flexible process that allows
not only the use of code hosted on Azure Repos but also the
connection to code repositories located on other platforms such as
GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

If you choose an external code source, you will need to authorize

Azure Pipelines to access your repository. This generally involves
signing in to your account on the external platform and granting the
necessary permissions for Azure Pipelines to read the code and
configure webhooks for CI/CD triggers.
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Pipeline Classic
Classic pipelines in Azure DevOps offer a graphical and user-friendly
approach to configuring and managing Continuous Integration (CI)
and Continuous Delivery (CD) without writing YAML code.

Classic pipelines have many screens for configuring variables,

triggers, and managing sources. It's a historical model, easy to
understand and very flexible.

Tip :
Azure DevOps offers the possibility to export an existing Classic
pipeline to a YAML format to start migrating your old pipelines.
However, you might encounter difficulties if you use features
such as "Task Groups".
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Pipeline YAML
YAML pipelines in Azure DevOps represent a modern, code-centric
approach to defining Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous
Delivery (CD) processes. Using the YAML (YAML Ain't Markup
Language), these pipelines allow for a declarative description of how
to build, test, and deploy your code directly in a text file that can be
versioned with your source code.

However, building pipelines within Azure DevOps also allows for

having an assistant.

Changes made to the pipeline configuration are traceable through

the version control system, offering full visibility into the evolution
of the CI/CD process.

Tip :
By using branch policies, you can ensure to systematically include
individuals who will validate the modification of the pipeline.
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Agent Pool
Agent Pools in Azure DevOps are collections of agents that execute
the tasks defined in your CI/CD pipelines. An agent is an application
installed on a physical or virtual machine that runs builds,
deployments, or other automated tasks defined in your pipelines.
Agent pools allow you to manage and organize these agents into
groups, facilitating the allocation of the necessary resources for
pipeline execution.

Hosted Agents: Azure DevOps provides hosted agents, which are

virtual machines managed by Microsoft with pre-installed
development environments. These agents are ready to use and
require no maintenance. There are several types of hosted agents
to target different operating systems or configurations.
Self-Hosted Agents: You can also set up your own agents on your
machines. This is useful for scenarios where you need specific
configurations, access to internal resources, or to use software
that is not available on hosted agents.

The configuration of a self-hosted agent is done in the project

settings.
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Releases
Releases in Azure DevOps are a crucial part of the Continuous
Delivery (CD) process, allowing for the management of application
deployments across different environments, such as development,
testing, and production. The management of releases in Azure
DevOps is designed to automate, schedule, and track the deployment
of your code, while ensuring the quality and stability of your
applications.
Release pipelines are primarily configured through a graphical user
interface, without a direct option to write the configuration in YAML.
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Multi-Stage
Pipelines in YAML
With the introduction and evolution of multi-stage pipelines in YAML,
Azure DevOps has begun to offer a unified experience for defining
Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) in a single
YAML file. This approach extends the flexibility and power of YAML to
deployment processes, allowing users to define deployment stages,
jobs, steps, environments, deployment strategies, and other aspects
of delivery in the same YAML file used for CI.
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Library
The Library in Azure DevOps is a feature that allows storing,
managing, and sharing variables and secrets across multiple
pipelines, facilitating the reuse of configurations and centralizing the
management of sensitive data.

Best Practices:

Principle of Least Privilege: Limit access to variables and variable

groups as needed. Only give access to team members who require
this information for their work.
Regular Review: Regularly review your variables and variable
groups to ensure they are up-to-date and that only appropriate
individuals have access.
Use of Variable Groups by Environment: Organize your variables
into groups specific to each environment to simplify management
and reduce the risk of accidental deployment with the wrong
configuration.
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Variable Groups
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Variable Groups
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Secure Files
The Secure Files section in Azure DevOps is a feature of the Library
that allows storing and managing secure files, such as certificates,
configuration files containing secrets, or any other type of sensitive
file, which you can then use in your CI/CD pipelines. These files are
stored securely and can be referenced by pipelines to automate
deployments and builds while keeping sensitive information
protected.

The file cannot be read from its interface but has permission
management and access conditions.
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Approuvals and
Checks
Variable groups or secure files can have usage conditions on
pipelines. These can apply to specific branches, people who can
initiate pipelines using secret elements, or even the schedule of use to
avoid, for example, an awkward deployment during a specific time
slot or day of the week.

Other conditions can even be written directly via Azure Functions or

by calling REST APIs to obtain validation for the use of the secret.
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Azure Test Plans

Azure Test Plans, a component of Azure DevOps, is a set of powerful
tools designed for test planning, manual test execution, test
automation, and tracking the overall quality of software within your
development projects. Azure Test Plans supports an integrated
approach to quality management, facilitating collaboration among
developers, testers, and project managers to improve the reliability
and performance of applications.

The free version of Azure DevOps includes access to Azure Boards,

Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, and limited capacity for Azure
Artifacts. However, access to Azure Test Plans is more restricted.
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Azure Artifacts
Azure Artifacts is a powerful feature for managing and sharing
packages within your organization or with the community. A "feed" is
a package repository where you can publish, consume, and share
packages of different types. This facilitates collaboration among
development teams and code reuse, while supporting DevOps
practices by enabling smooth project dependency management.
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Visual Studio
Marketplace
The Visual Studio Marketplace is an online platform where users can
discover, acquire, and install extensions to enhance and customize
their experience with Visual Studio, Azure DevOps, and GitHub
products. It offers a wide range of extensions, from integrations with
other services and tools, to productivity enhancements for
developers, as well as dashboard widgets and custom tasks for Azure
DevOps pipelines.

Visual Studio Marketplace offers extensions that can extend and

customize the functionalities of Azure Boards, Azure Repos, Azure
Pipelines, and more.
 Antony Kervazo-Canut

In the same
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ANTONY KERVAZO-CANUT