What is Azure DevOps?
12 Dec 2023
Azure DevOps is a suite of software products. Let’s take a look at them.
Note: A lot of my language in this article is ripped off directly from Microsoft docs, because they already wrote it exactly how it should be written.
What is Azure DevOps?
Azure DevOps (“ADO,” occasionally “AzDO”) is a web-based suite of software products offered by Microsoft.
It is used by software development teams for efforts such as:
- Planning work.
- Collaborating on code development.
- Building, testing, and deploying applications.
What are the major components of Azure DevOps?
Azure Boards
ADO Boards is a set of project management tools that enables teams to plan, track, and discuss work across the entire solution development process.
It supports agile methodologies including Scrum and Kanban.
(Competitors include Atlassian JIRA, etc.)
Azure Test Plans
ADO Test Plans provides tools everyone in the team can use to drive quality and collaboration throughout the development process.
The browser-based test management tools provide capabilities required for planning manual testing, user acceptance testing, exploratory testing, automated test reporting, and gathering feedback from stakeholders.
Azure Repos
ADO Repos is a set of version control tools for managing the source code that supports a project.
Version control systems are software that helps you track changes you make in your code over time.
Azure Repos supports Git, the current industry-standard version control protocol.
(Competitors include GitHub.com, GitLab.com, Atlassian BitBucket, AWS CodeCommit, Google Cloud Source Repositories, etc.)
Azure Pipelines
ADO Pipelines is a set of “CI/CD” automation tools for building, testing, and deploying the source code stored in Azure Repos to run in destinations such as the Azure cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, enterprise data centers, etc.
(Most competitors to Azure Repos include an equivalent product to Azure Pipelines. For example, GitHub.com includes GitHub Actions.)
Azure Artifacts
ADO Artifacts allows developers to share reusable, runnable packages of “built” code with each other.
(By contrast, Azure Repos allows developers to share “source” code that is easy for humans to read but may not be executable.)
Azure Artifacts also allows developers to consume packages from different feeds and public registries such as NuGet.org or npmjs.com.
Packages in Azure Artifacts are typically used to facilitate authoring Azure Pipelines automations.
(Many competitors to Azure Repos include an equivalent product to Azure Artifacts. For example, GitHub.com includes GitHub Packages.)
How much does Azure DevOps cost?
User license costs vary by the types of Azure DevOps services needed. For example:
- All free “Stakeholder” Azure DevOps licenses can use several Azure Boards features.
- Consult Microsoft’s full list of “Stakeholder” capabilities for details.
- A paid “Basic” license is required if Azure Repos access is also needed.
- Approximately $6/month at the time this article was first written.
