All the benefits of Azure DevOps

In the world of IT, the right support for development processes is becoming crucial. You want to grow in terms of collaboration and make use of the latest technologies. Azure DevOps can help with this. In this blog, Frank Herling explains what Azure DevOps can mean for your organization.

What is Azure DevOps?

Azure DevOps is a software tool that emerged from the DevOps approach, aimed at improving collaboration between software developers and IT professionals. The main goal of DevOps is to make development and operations more efficient through automation.

The tool makes it easier to plan, build, test, deploy, and manage software and environments. By automating tasks, Azure DevOps speeds up the development cycle and increases the reliability of deployments. Azure DevOps is built on the Microsoft Azure platform, allowing it to work seamlessly with other Microsoft tools such as Azure Cloud Services, GitHub, Teams, and Power BI.

In summary, Azure DevOps is a supporting tool for developers, making it easier for them to collaborate, automate, and optimize their software development process.

What can you do with Azure DevOps?

In Azure DevOps you can use various services. Below I've listed the most important ones for you:

Azure Boards: This lets you easily manage various software projects. It allows you to plan and track all your tasks and sprints using scrum and kanban boards, customizable dashboards, backlogs, and reports.

Azure Pipelines: This service enables Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD), allowing you to create automated workflows for building, testing, and deploying code. Azure Pipelines supports almost any programming language and cloud environment.

Azure Repos: Azure Repos records changes to your code, allowing you to manage the progress of your software project. It logs who made which changes and when, making collaboration within a development team easier while maintaining code quality.

Azure Test Plans: With this service you can run tests, for example based on specific user stories, to check the functionality of your software.

Azure Artifacts: This is a platform for managing packages, allowing you to create code packages from both public and private sources. These packages can be hosted and shared with your team.

Why do you need Azure DevOps?

Below I've listed a number of reasons why you need Azure DevOps within your organization:

Scalability: Azure DevOps is designed for both small and large teams, easy to scale up as projects and developers grow.

Flexibility: Adapt the platform effortlessly to the specific needs of your team or organization for optimal flexibility.

Integration: Integrate Azure DevOps seamlessly with data-related tools such as Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, SQL Server, Apache Spark, and Power BI.

Automation: Azure DevOps supports various development tasks, such as building the application, testing, and deploying.

Collaboration: Support teamwork by keeping everyone up to date, assigning tasks, and communicating effectively.

What are the costs of Azure DevOps?

As with other Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, Azure DevOps also uses a subscription model. The cost of the subscription depends on the number of users. This means you can use the tool free of charge for small projects. Costs only kick in once you want to add more than five users to a project or want to host large projects. Subscription costs start at 30 euros per month for around ten users and increase as more users are added to Azure DevOps.

In short, Azure DevOps offers useful benefits for companies that want to improve their development processes. With handy services such as CI/CD pipelines, version control via Azure Repos, and flexible planning with boards, you can organize your development work better and keep good track of projects. The easy collaboration with the Microsoft Azure platform and other Microsoft tools makes it a valuable addition to your existing way of working.

Written by Frank Herling,
Business Intelligence Consultant at E-mergo