Azure DevOps Step By Step Tutorial for Beginners

Developers, project managers, and contributors work together to create software due to Azure DevOps’ collaborative culture and set of procedures. It enables businesses to produce and enhance products more quickly than they could using conventional software development methods. Read through this Azure DevOps step by step tutorial for beginners. Explore our Azure course syllabus to get started.

Getting Started to Azure Tutorial

You can use your web browser or IDE client to access the integrated capabilities offered by Azure DevOps. All of Azure DevOps’ services are available for usage, or you can select the ones you require to enhance your current processes. The following will be covered in this Azure DevOps tutorial:

• Core Concepts of Azure DevOps
• Sign Up to Azure DevOps
• Create a New Project with Azure DevOps
• Explore the Project with Azure DevOps
• Working with Azure Repos (Git)
• Creating an Azure Pipeline
• Azure Boards Basics Usage
• Key Tips for Azure Beginners
• Importance of Learning Azure DevOps

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Core Concepts of Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps’s fundamental ideas include infrastructure as code, agile planning, continuous delivery, and continuous monitoring. 

• Continuous Delivery: An efficient procedure that integrates deployment, testing, and development. Automatically updates production environments with code through automation.
• Continuous Monitoring: A method that tracks every stage of IT and DevOps operations. It ensures the functionality, dependability, and health of infrastructure and applications.
• Agile Planning: A method that aids businesses in managing projects more effectively, obtaining greater outcomes, and producing higher-quality work. Functions well with a DevOps or Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) toolkit.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): It is a technique for computer data center management that makes use of code file specifications. It simplifies infrastructure provisioning, enabling cloud applications to be deployed with fewer errors. 
• Continuous integration (CI): It is an automated method for combining and testing code. It reduces the cost of fixing defects by assisting in their early detection during the development cycle.
• Continuous deployment (CD): An expansion of the continuous delivery and continuous integration concepts. It ensures that software is always prepared for production release.

Suggested: Azure DevOps Training in Chennai.

Understanding the Azure DevOps

The full development lifecycle is covered by Azure DevOps, a bundle of services that includes planning, coding, application development, testing, and deployment. 

Here are some of its main elements:

• Azure Boards: For agile approaches, backlog management, and task planning and tracking.
• Azure Repos: Version management for your code is provided by Azure Repos, which supports both TFVC and Git.
• Azure Pipelines: Uses continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to automate builds, tests, and deployments.
• Azure Test Plans: Provides both automated and manual testing capabilities.
• Azure Artefacts: Package management and sharing are made possible by Azure Artefacts.

Signing Up with Azure DevOps

You can create an Azure account by:

• Visit the Azure website.
• Choose Make an account.
• Put in your email address, phone number, and password.
• Present a legitimate debit or credit card.
• To validate your account, adhere to the instructions.
• Click “Sign Up.”

If you already have a Microsoft account, like Microsoft 365, you can also create an Azure account. 

Types of Azure Accounts

• Free Account: Receive a $200 credit to test Azure for 30 days and a complimentary 12-month subscription to popular services.
• Pay-as-you-go Account: Get a certain number of services for free each month, and pay for what you use above the free limits.
• Corporate Account: Ask the cloud administrator at your firm for your Azure login credentials.

Azure features like the Azure Portal and Cloud Shell can be accessed with your Azure account. Azure can also be used to manage APIs, create apps, and more. 

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Create a New Project with Azure DevOps

To set up a source code repository and to organize and monitor activity, create an Azure DevOps project. Your project can be organized and managed to meet your company objectives. Boundaries are provided by each project to separate data from other projects.

Prerequisites: An organization and permission belonging to the group known as Project Collection Administrators or having the “Create new projects” permission set to Allow at the collection level. Owners of organizations are inherently included in this group.

Step 1: Go to https://dev.azure.com/{Your_Organization} and log in to your organization. Choose “New Project.”

Step 2: Enter data into the form provided.

• Give your project a name. Your project name can’t contain special characters, such as / : \ ~ & % ; @ ‘ ” ? < > | # $ * } { , + = [ ], can’t begin with an underscore, can’t begin or end with a period, and must be 64 or fewer characters.
• You may add a description here.
• Select the work item process, visibility, and initial source control type. 
• If you select public visibility, your project will be visible to everybody with an internet connection. With private visibility, your project can only be viewed by those you provide access to. The policy needs to be changed if the Public option isn’t accessible.

Step 3: Click “Create.” The project welcome page is displayed by Azure DevOps.

Step 4: Select one of the following options to continue:

• Invite: Include more people in your project. Look Users can be added to a team or project. Only users who are already a part of your organization can be invited. 
• Boards: It includes tasks. 
• Repositories: Create a README file for your project overview page or clone or import a repository.
• Pipelines: Give an example of a pipeline.
• Test Plans: Specify test suites and plans. 
• Artefacts: Find, set up, and release the Maven, npm, and NuGet packages. 
• Manage your services: Turn off the services’ visibility.

Step 5: Now you can list the projects from your web browser.

Step 6: Add a repository to your project.

Explore our Azure DevOps interview questions and answers.

Explore the Project

Get acquainted with the following primary sections is important:

• Boards: Begin by generating work items, such as tasks, issues, and user stories.
• Repositories: They can be imported or cloned if you have code.
• Pipelines: You will design your build and release pipelines here.

Azure Boards

An essential component of the Azure DevOps suite, Azure Boards offers strong capabilities for work planning, tracking, and discussion. Here’s a closer look at its main features:

Work Item Tracking: You can keep track of a variety of work items using Azure Boards, including tasks, user stories, features, and problems. This facilitates efficient work management and organization for teams.

• It provides work item kinds that can be customized to meet the demands of your particular project.

Agile Planning: It supports a number of agile approaches, such as Kanban and Scrum.

• You can schedule sprints, make backlogs, and see how far your team has come.

Kanban Boards: Kanban boards give you a visual depiction of your workflow and let you monitor how work items are progressing through various phases.

• The swimlanes and columns can be altered to fit the workflow of your team.

Backlogs: Backlogs assist you in managing and prioritizing your tasks.

• To efficiently arrange your work, you can make sprint and product backlogs.

Sprints: They are brief, time-boxed work iterations that may be planned and tracked with Azure Boards.

• Sprint planning tools allow you to assign tasks to sprints and monitor the progress of your team.

Reporting and Dashboards: Dashboards give you a customisable way to see how your project is doing and let you keep an eye on important metrics and patterns.

• To learn more about the performance of your team, you can create reports.

Integration: Azure Boards easily connects with Azure Repos and Azure Pipelines, among other Azure DevOps services.

• Additionally, it interfaces with other well-known programs like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and GitHub.

Customization: Teams can modify Azure Boards to fit their unique workflows thanks to its great degree of customization.

Some of the key benefits of Azure Boards are improved collaboration, increased visibility, enhanced productivity, and better tracking.

Azure Repos

Version control for your code is offered by Azure Repos, a fundamental component in Azure DevOps. It is intended to facilitate productive teamwork on software development projects. Below is a summary of its salient features:

• Git and TFVC Support: Azure Repos supports both Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) (centralized version control) and Git (distributed version control). It provides flexibility. Teams are able to select the solution that best fits their workflow as a result.
• Unlimited Private Git Repositories: Your code is safe when you create and host an infinite number of private Git repositories.
• Pull Requests: An essential component of cooperative development are pull requests. Code modifications can be reviewed, discussed, and approved by teams before being merged into the main branch because of them. Code quality is improved by features like branch policies, code reviews, and comments.
• Branch Policies: Use branch policies to impose guidelines and standards on your codebase. Before pull requests may be merged, these policies may demand code reviews, successful builds, and test passes.
• Code Search: Use code search, which is aware of classes and variables, to locate specific code in your repositories quickly.
• Integration with Azure Pipelines: Azure Repos and Azure Pipelines have a smooth integration that makes automated builds, tests, and deployments (CI/CD) possible.
• Permissions and Security: Your code is protected and compliance is guaranteed by strong security features like audit logs and role-based access control.
• Collaboration Tools: Functions like notifications and wikis make it easier for teams to communicate and work together.
• IDE Integration: The majority of contemporary IDEs are compatible with Azure repos.

Some of the benefits of Azure Repos are enhanced collaboration, improved code quality, streamlined workflows, secure version control, and flexibility.

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Azure Pipelines

One of Azure DevOps’ cloud services, Azure Pipelines, automates the development and testing of code before making it accessible to consumers. Almost any language or kind of project can use it. Below is a summary of its main features:

• Continuous Integration (CI): Every time a team member makes a change to version control, code is automatically built and tested. This keeps the codebase stable and aids in the early detection of issues.
• Continuous Delivery (CD): Code deployment to multiple environments, including development, testing, and production, is automated via continuous delivery, or CD. This makes it possible for teams to consistently and swiftly distribute software upgrades.
• YAML-Based Pipelines: YAML files, which are kept in version control with your code, are used to define pipelines. Versioning, monitoring changes, and facilitating collaboration are all made possible by this “pipelines-as-code” methodology.
• Cross-Platform Support: A variety of programming languages and platforms, including as.NET, Java, Python, Node.js, and others, are supported by Azure Pipelines.
• Agents: Your build and deployment jobs are managed by Azure Pipelines using agents.
  • Microsoft-hosted agents: These offer pre-configured environments and are overseen by Microsoft.
  • Self-hosted agents: These provide you more control over the environment because you are in charge of them.
• Tasks: They are pre-written scripts that carry out particular operations, including generating code, executing tests, or deploying to Azure. Pipelines are constructed using tasks.

Some of the benefits of Azure Pipelines are automation, faster release, improved quality, increased productivity, and scalability.

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Working with Azure Repos

A set of basic procedures must be followed when working with Azure Repos in order to provide efficient version control and teamwork. Below is a summary of the key aspects:

Repository Creation and Cloning:

Creating a Repository: 

• You may quickly establish new Git repositories inside your Azure DevOps project.
• Either a README file or a.gitignore file, which is strongly advised, can be used to establish the repository.

Cloning a Repository: 

• Making a local copy of a remote repository on your computer is known as cloning.
• Working on the code locally and synchronizing your changes with the remote repository is made possible by this.
• The required URLs are provided by Azure DevOps, and you can clone using SSH or HTTPS.

Core Git Operations

• Making Changes: You can edit or create new files after cloning. 
• Staging Changes: git add is a command that stages your changes so they are ready for a commit.
• Committing Changes: Git commit: This command adds a detailed commit message to your local repository along with your staged modifications.
• Pushing Changes: git push: Your local commits are uploaded to the distant Azure Repos repository using this command.
• Pulling Changes: Use the git pull command to retrieve changes to your local repository from the remote repository.
• Branching: You can work on bug fixes or new features separately by creating branches.
  • With the command git checkout -b <branch-name>:, a new branch is created and switched to.
• Merging: This process incorporates modifications from one branch into another.

Pull Requests and Code Reviews:

Pull Requests: 

• An essential component of cooperative development are pull requests.
• Before code changes are merged into the main branch, they give team members a chance to examine and debate them.
• Azure Repos offers conflict resolution, approval, and code commenting features.

Code Reviews: 

• Code reviews assist in identifying any problems and ensuring code quality.
• Pull requests allow team members to comment on code changes.

Branch Policies

Enforcing Standards: 

• You can impose guidelines and standards for your codebase by implementing branch policies.
• Pull requests may not be merged until code reviews, successful builds, and passed tests have been completed.
• This keeps errors at bay and preserves the quality of the code.

Best Practices for Azure Repos

• Descriptive Commit Messages: Clearly and succinctly describe the changes you’ve made in your commit messages.
• Update Your Local Repository Frequently: To keep your local repository current with the most recent changes from the remote repository, use git pull.
• Make Effective Use of Branches: To encourage cooperation and isolate changes, use branches.
• Use Pull Requests: To guarantee careful review and discussion, use pull requests for all code changes.

You can work with your team and manage your source code using Azure Repos by adhering to these guidelines.

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Creating an Azure Pipeline

One essential ability for automating your software development life cycle is setting up an Azure pipeline. Here is a summary of the procedure that highlights important ideas and useful actions:

• Go to Azure Pipelines and create a new pipeline.
• Connect your repository.
• Azure Pipelines can often detect your project’s language and suggest a starter pipeline.
• Edit the YAML file to customize your build and deployment steps.

Prerequisites

• Azure DevOps Organization and Project: You will require an active Azure DevOps organization along with a project that is part of it.
• Source Code Archive: A version control repository, such GitHub, Azure Repos (Git), or another approved source, must contain your code.

Initiating a New Pipeline

• Navigate to Pipelines: Locate the “Pipelines” component under your Azure DevOps project.
• Establish a New Pipeline: The “New pipeline” button should be clicked.
• Choose the Location of the Source Code: Decide where to store your source code repository (e.g., GitHub, Azure Repos).
• Choose the repository: Choose the particular repository where your code is located.

Configuring the Pipeline

Pipeline Configuring: 

• Azure Pipelines frequently examines your repository and recommends an appropriate pipeline template.
• To construct a custom YAML file, you may either start with a “Starter pipeline” or select one of the suggested templates.

YAML Definition: 

• The main way that Azure Pipelines defines pipeline configurations is using YAML files.
• Usually, the azure-pipelines.yml file is located at your repository’s root.
• The jobs, tasks, and stages that comprise your pipeline are specified in this file.

Key YAML Concepts:

• Triggers: Indicate when the pipeline ought to execute (for instance, in response to pull requests or code commits).
• Pool: Indicates which agent pool—such as self-hosted or Microsoft-hosted agents—will run the pipeline.
• Stages: Specify the pipeline’s high-level stages, such as build, test, and deploy.
• Jobs: Specify the particular duties that must be carried out during a phase.
• Tasks: Pre-written or specially written scripts that carry out particular operations (such as code compilation, test execution, and Azure deployment).

Saving and Running the Pipeline

• Save and Run: 
  • Save the azure-pipelines.yml file once your pipeline has been configured.
  • The pipeline can then be executed manually or set up to execute automatically in response to triggers.
• Pipeline Run Monitoring:
  • For every pipeline run, Azure Pipelines offers comprehensive logs and status data.
  • You can monitor your pipeline’s development and spot any mistakes or malfunctions.

Crucial Points to Remember for Implementing Azure Pipelines

• YAML Syntax: Pay careful attention to the formatting and indentation used in YAML.
• Task Selection: Pick the right tasks based on your unique build and deployment specifications.
• Variable Management: Configuration values are stored and managed using variables.
• Security: To safeguard your code and credentials, put in place the proper security measures.

You may automate your software development workflows by creating efficient Azure Pipelines by following these steps.

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Azure Boards Basic Usage

Here are the ways to use Azure Boards:

• Step 1: Access Azure Boards: Go to the “Boards” section after logging into your Azure DevOps organization.
• Step 2: Pick a Project: Decide the project you wish to oversee work items for.
• Step 3: View Kanban Board: To view the current work items arranged according to their status, access the Kanban board.
• Step 4: Create a New Work Item: To create a new task, user narrative, issue, etc., click the “Add New Work Item” button.
• Step 5: Assign Details: Enter the required data, including the area path, assigned owner, priority, title, and description.
• Step 6: Move Work Items: To change the status of work items when it is completed, drag & drop them between columns on the board. 

Key Tips for Beginners

Here are the key tips for beginners to start using Azure DevOps:

• Begin Small: Concentrate on one element at a time.
• Utilize Microsoft’s Documentation: Microsoft offers top-notch tutorials and documentation.
• Practice: Doing is the best way to learn. Develop initiatives and try new things.
• Recognize the concepts of DevOps: You can use Azure DevOps more efficiently if you have a basic understanding of DevOps principles.

Importance of Learning Azure DevOps

In the current software development environment, understanding Azure DevOps is becoming more and more crucial. Below are the reasons for learning Azure DevOps:

• Streamlined Software Development Lifecycle with automation, Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), and improved collaboration.
• Enhanced Productivity and Efficiency with faster time to market, increased code quality, and reduced errors.
• Valuable Career Skills with high demand, versatility, and industry recognition.
• Improved Project Management using Agile methodologies, work item tracking, and visibility and reporting.
• Cloud Integration with seamless Azure integration and cloud-native development.

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Conclusion

Learning Azure DevOps equips you with the skills and knowledge to contribute to efficient, high-quality software development practices, which are essential in today’s fast-paced technological environment. We hope this Azure DevOps step by step tutorial for beginners will be helpful to get started. Enjoy the unlimited learning benefits with our Azure training in Chennai and kickstart your cloud computing career.