Introduction to Azure DevOps

Welcome to the introductory tutorial for Azure DevOps. Azure DevOps is a suite of services that helps you plan, develop, and deliver software faster and with higher quality. This guide will provide an overview of its core components and how they work together.

What is Azure DevOps?

Azure DevOps offers end-to-end solutions for the entire DevOps lifecycle, including:

Azure Boards: For planning and tracking work.
Azure Repos: For version control using Git or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC).
Azure Pipelines: For continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).
Azure Artifacts: For managing packages and dependencies.
Azure Test Plans: For manual and exploratory testing.

Getting Started

To begin using Azure DevOps, you'll need an Azure account. You can create a free Azure DevOps organization to get started:

Navigate to Azure DevOps website.
Click "Start free".
Sign in with your Microsoft account.
Create a new organization or join an existing one.

Core Concepts

Projects

An Azure DevOps organization contains one or more projects. A project is a container for your work, code, build pipelines, and more. It's a logical grouping for your team's work.

Teams

Within a project, you can define multiple teams. Each team can have its own set of work items, backlogs, and dashboards, allowing for distributed agile development.

Tip: When creating your first project, consider how your teams will collaborate. You can always add or modify teams later.

Exploring Azure Boards

Azure Boards provides tools to help teams plan, track, and discuss work. Key features include:

Backlogs: Prioritized lists of work items.
Kanban Boards: Visualizing workflow and progress.
Scrum Boards: Managing sprints and daily stand-ups.
Queries: Powerful tools to find specific work items.

You can start by creating user stories, tasks, and bugs in your project's backlog.

Version Control with Azure Repos

Azure Repos offers Git repositories (recommended) and Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC). Git is a distributed version control system that allows for branching, merging, and collaboration.

To use Azure Repos:

Create a new Git repository within your project.
Clone the repository to your local machine.
Make changes, commit them, and push them back to the remote repository.

Learn more about branching strategies and pull requests in our dedicated Azure Repos tutorial.

Automating with Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines enables you to build, test, and deploy your code automatically. It supports CI/CD workflows for virtually any application, language, and cloud.

A typical pipeline consists of:

Triggers: Events that start the pipeline (e.g., code push).
Stages: Major divisions of the pipeline (e.g., Build, Test, Deploy).
Jobs: A set of steps executed on an agent.
Steps: Individual tasks performed within a job.

Explore the fundamentals of pipeline creation in the Azure Pipelines tutorial.

Example YAML Snippet for a Simple Build Pipeline:


trigger:
- main

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

steps:
- script: echo Hello, world!
  displayName: 'Run a one-line script'

- script: |
    echo Add other tasks to build, test, and deploy your project.
    echo Example: dotnet build
  displayName: 'Build the project'

Conclusion

This introduction has covered the foundational services within Azure DevOps. By mastering Azure Boards for planning, Azure Repos for version control, and Azure Pipelines for automation, you can significantly improve your team's productivity and software delivery speed.

Continue to the next tutorials to dive deeper into each of these powerful services.