We can use the Azure DevOps Pipelines to automatically build and test our coding projects. The Azure pipeline provides a wide range of features, including continuous integration and delivery, which enable us to continuously test, build, and distribute our code to any target.
If you are interested in learning about tools that help manage and automate the complete software development life cycle, you should become familiar with Azure Pipelines and Azure DevOps and how they help during product development releases.
In this blog, we will delve into how to configure an Azure CI/CD Pipeline starting from the source stage with existing code.
How can DevOps help your team?
DevOps enables different teams like development, IT operations, quality assurance, project management and security teams to collaborate, so they can produce stronger and more reliable products than they can with traditional software development. Organizations building a DevOps culture gain the ability to quickly and efficiently respond to their customers’ needs.
There is a wide range of DevOps tools available in the market with similar abilities. These include Jenkins, Bitbuckets, Git, Gitlabs, Github, etc. They provide additional functionalities such as code repository, version control, etc., and DevOps capabilities, but they lack end-to-end abilities to manage the software development lifecycle.
What is Azure DevOps?
Microsoft Azure offers Azure DevOps for a team to support a multitude of services, such as planning, collaborating, building, and deploying applications. It is one of the leading tools that automate continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes and supports automatic build and code projects to make them readily available to others.
The integrated features from Azure DevOps include:
- Azure Boards: Deliver value to the users faster using proven tools to plan, track, and discuss work across the teams.
- Azure Pipelines: Build, test, and deploy with CI/CD that works with any language, platform, and cloud. It connects to GitHub or any other Git provider and deploys continuously.
- Azure Repos: Provide unlimited, cloud-hosted private Git repos and integrates them to build better code with pull requests and advanced file management.
- Azure Tests Plans: Test and ship confidently using manual and exploratory testing tools.
- Azure Artifacts: Create, host, and share packages within the team and add artifacts to your CI/CD pipelines with a single click.
What are Azure Pipelines?
Azure Pipelines automatically build and test code projects to make them available to others. It works with just about any language or project type. Azure Pipelines combine continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) to test and build your code and ship it to any target.
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice used by development teams to automate merging and testing code. Implementing CI helps to catch bugs early in the development cycle, which makes them less expensive to fix. Automated tests execute as part of the CI process to ensure quality. Artifacts are produced from CI systems and fed to release processes to drive frequent deployments. The Build service in the Azure DevOps server helps you set up and manage CI for your applications.
Continuous Delivery (CD) is a process by which code is built, tested, and deployed to one or more test and production environments. Deploying and testing in multiple environments increases quality. CI systems produce deployable artifacts, including infrastructure and apps. Automated release processes consume these artifacts to release new versions and fixes to existing systems. Monitoring and alerting systems run continually to drive visibility into the entire CD process.
Continuous Testing (CT) on-premises or in the cloud use automated build-deploy-test workflows, with a choice of technologies and frameworks that test changes continuously in a fast, scalable, and efficient manner.
Why should I use Azure DevOps Pipelines?
Implementing CI and CD pipelines helps to ensure consistency and helps to make sure that quality code is readily available to users. And Azure Pipelines also provide a quick, easy, and safe way to build your projects.
Azure Pipelines support the following scenarios:
- Works with any language or platform.
- Utilizes different types of targets at the same time.
- Integrates with Azure deployments.
- Builds on Windows, Linux, or Mac machines.
- Integrates with GitHub.
- Works with open-source projects.
How do I run automated tests on Azure DevOps Pipeline?
- Continuous integration (CI) automates tests and helps build your project. CI helps to catch bugs or issues early in the development cycle when they’re easier and faster to fix. Items known as artifacts are produced from CI systems. Continuous delivery release pipelines use them to drive automatic deployments.
- Continuous delivery automatically deploys and tests code in multiple stages to help drive quality. Continuous integration systems produce deployable artifacts, which include infrastructure and apps. Automated release pipelines consume these artifacts to release new versions and fixes to the target of your choice.
Continuous Integration (CI)
- Increase code coverage
- Build faster by splitting test and build runs
- Automatically ensure you don’t ship broken code
- Run tests continually
Continuous Delivery (CD)
- Automatically deploy code to production
- Ensure deployment targets have the latest code
- Use tested code from the CI process
Defining Pipelines Using The Classic Interface (CI)
Create and configure pipelines in the Azure DevOps web portal with the Classic user interface editor. You define a build pipeline to build and test your code and then publish artifacts. You also define a release pipeline to consume and deploy those artifacts to deployment targets.
Follow these basic steps:
- Configure Azure Pipelines to use your Git repo.
- Use the Azure Pipelines classic editor to create and configure your build and release pipelines.
- Push your code to your version control repository. This action triggers your pipeline and runs tasks such as building or testing code. (not lined up and bullet size is different.
The build creates an artifact that the rest of your pipeline uses to run tasks such as deploying, staging, or production. Once the code is updated, built, tested, and packaged…it is ready to go to any target.
Azure DevOps Pipeline Services and Payoda
Payoda is an IT services and technology company with North American headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and global headquarters in Coimbatore, India. Payoda has been in operation since 2005 and currently has over 500 technology professionals serving a multitude of small, medium, and large enterprise clients on three continents. Our technology expertise spans from Cloud, data services, AI/ML, and the web to mobility. And all of our professionals are focused on providing measurable business impacts for our clients through a variety of global engagement models to suit our client’s specific needs including onshore, offshore, and nearshore options.
Come and talk to Payoda’s consultants to see how you can maximize your business impact today!
