The reason we use DevOps is that traditional software development was less effective when it came to the development of applications and the deployment side. Due to the challenges of this traditional development process, teams within an organization would struggle to complete the software development cycle without any conflicts and prolonged issues. This is where DevOps comes in as a solution to facilitate and resolve these challenges by offering a seamless software development lifecycle.
Continuous Integration (CI) is a DevOps practice in which developers integrate their code changes into a shared repository. Through these regular integrations, these changes are automatically verified by running tests and building the project to detect and solve errors in an effective and timely manner.
Continuous deployment (CD) incorporates CI but goes further by automatically deploying all the code changes to a test environment after the build stage. This ensures that the codebase is deployable at any time, leading to a more agile workflow and faster release cycles.
Azure Boards is part of the Azure DevOps suite and is used for managing the project or software. Essential features of an Azure board consist of reporting, dashboards, project planning, tracking, and collaboration for software development projects. These various features allow cross-functional teams to work more effectively.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a key DevOps practice that involves managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable scripts and configuration files, rather than through physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. This allows for consistent and repeatable setup of infrastructure, reducing errors and speeding up deployment processes.
Azure Pipelines is a service that helps in automating the build and deployment processes. It supports continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) to build, test, and deploy code to any platform, ensuring faster and more reliable software releases.
VNet stands for Virtual Network and is a fundamental building block to the private network in the cloud. It is a network or an environment that can be used to run virtual machines and applications in the cloud. When virtual machines and applications are created, they can communicate with one another securely. VNet is an important feature to ensure secure, isolated, and customized networks in the cloud, with enhanced control and security.
Update domains are part of the Azure infrastructure and are responsible for managing and isolating hardware and software updates. When multiple virtual machines are designed, these update domains get automatically distributed using available sets. They can be rebooted or taken down for maintenance at the same time.
Organizing and distributing virtual machines into separate update domains ensures that only a subset of the virtual machine is affected during rebooting or maintenance scenarios. This allows for high availability to ensure that the application remains accessible even during system updates. During maintenance events, Azure will update the hosts in one update domain at a time to ensure that the service can continue to run with only a portion of the service affected.
The Dogpile effect is the period after the cache expires and requests have been made on the website from the client. These subsequent requests lead to heavy or slow operations, such as database queries, which can lead to an excessive load on the database or overall service. The Dogpile effect typically happens in high-traffic websites and applications, in which a high increase in workload leads to a decrease in performance or downtime.
To prevent the Dogpile effect from happening, you can implement a lock mechanism on the cache so that when the cache expires, and a first request for data comes in, a lock is automatically placed on the cache key. In this case, other requests will have to wait for the lock to be released with the updated cache.
Blue-Green Deployment is a release management strategy that reduces downtime and risk by running two identical production environments, referred to as Blue and Green. At any time, only one environment (e.g., Blue) serves production traffic. When a new version of the software is ready, it is deployed to the idle environment (Green). After thorough testing, traffic is switched to the Green environment, making it live. This strategy allows for seamless rollbacks if issues arise, as the previous environment (Blue) remains unchanged and can be switched back instantly.
Azure DevOps Artifacts is a service that provides a fully integrated package management solution, enabling teams to create, host, and share packages with others. It supports various package types such as NuGet, npm, Maven, Python, and Universal Packages. By using Azure Artifacts, teams can manage dependencies efficiently, ensure version consistency, and share reusable components across projects. It integrates seamlessly with Azure Pipelines for automated builds and deployments, enhancing the overall DevOps workflow.
Security in Azure DevOps can be managed through:
Role-based access control (RBAC): Define roles and permissions for users and teams.
Branch policies: Set policies to enforce code reviews and restrict direct commits to key branches.
Secure pipeline secrets: Store credentials, tokens, and keys securely in Azure Pipelines using secrets management tools like Azure Key Vault.
Azure Repos provides source control to manage and track changes in your codebase. It supports both Git, a distributed version control system, and Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC), a centralized version control system.
YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) is a human-readable data serialization standard used to define the pipeline configuration as code in Azure Pipelines. By using YAML, developers can version control their pipeline configurations alongside the application code, making the process more transparent and easier to manage.
Azure DevOps supports Agile and Scrum methodologies through Azure Boards, which includes features such as:
Backlogs for managing product features and user stories.
Kanban boards for task management.
Sprints for sprint planning and tracking.
Custom work item types for epics, user stories, and tasks.
Azure Artifacts is used to handle package management in Azure DevOps. It allows teams to store, publish, and manage packages such as NuGet, npm, Maven, or Python packages, ensuring that dependencies are controlled and managed consistently across projects.
Azure DevTest Labs provides developers and testers with on-demand, pre-configured environments to quickly build, test, and deploy applications. Benefits include:
Reduced costs by setting automated shutdown policies for VMs.
Quicker setup of development and test environments.
Integration with CI/CD pipelines for testing applications in isolated environments.
Azure DevOps provides native integrations with popular tools like Jenkins, GitHub, Docker, and Kubernetes. It also supports integration with other tools via REST APIs, service hooks, and webhooks, enabling teams to use a wide range of development and monitoring tools in their workflows.
Deployments in Azure DevOps can be monitored using Azure Pipelines with integration into services like Azure Monitor and Application Insights. These tools allow teams to track application performance, identify issues, and ensure successful deployments.
Service Hooks in Azure DevOps allow integrations with external services to react to specific events in your DevOps projects. For example, when a build is completed, or a work item is updated, Service Hooks can trigger actions in third-party services like Slack, Trello, or Jenkins, enhancing team collaboration and automation.
Azure boards provide team members with the tools and features to implement and follow the Scrum framework. However, the Scrum master facilitates the Scrum process by supporting the team members to effectively adhere to the Scrum processes and ensuring projects are successful.
For example, this can include sprint planning, daily/weekly stand-ups, sprint review, backlog organization, monitoring, reporting, and overall promoting agile processes and principles.
