How to migrate Test Cases from Azure DevOps to TestRail? - azure-devops

Our organization wants to move all the test cases from Azure DevOps to TestRail. How can I do that? When I checked azure DevOps rest APIs here , there is no such api to pull all the test cases for a project.
Is there any tool that I can use to migrate test cases from Azure DevOps to TestRail?

Have you considered migrating to a test management tool by using a CSV file import? Azure DevOps allows you to export your test cases to a CSV file. You can learn more here:
Export TestCases to Excel/CSV in Azure DevOps
You can then import test cases as a CSV file into various test management tools. For example, in the test management tool Testmo you can import test cases from a CSV file and easily map columns to fields:
Importing CSV/Excel
Full disclosure: I'm one the developers behind Testmo, so I'm using it as an example. But this approach should work with various other test management tools as well.

Yes, OpsHub is a commercial third-party migration tool that facilitates smooth migration of Test Management work items including Test cases from Azure DevOps to TestRail. OpsHub has experience in undertaking complex migration projects, ensuring ZERO downtime, no data loss, systematic cut-over, and a factory approach, which should be an excellent choice for your use case.
OpsHub also takes care of the following use cases: 
Non-disruptive Migration: Migration can cause massive disruptions to operations by not letting users use TestRail while the migration is going on. Often the cost of disruption dominates all other explicit and hidden costs.  OpsHub minimizes disruption to all aspects of current operations.  
Supported Entities: OpsHub supports the migration of the entities, Test Plan, Test Result, Test Run, Test Suite, Test Cases from Azure DevOps to Tests, Test Cases, Test Plans, Test Results, Test Runs, Test Suites, Sections, Milestones, etc., to TestRail.  Projects and other instance-level configurations like fields, users, etc. will have to be manually taken over or with the help of the TestRail team.
  
Please reach out to OpsHub’s Migration Experts for the steps on migration planning from Azure DevOps to TestRail. 
Full disclosure: I'm work for OpsHub.

Related

Selective Deployment in Azure Data Factory (ADF)?

I am using npm package based CI-CD approach for ADF. I want to selectively deploy some pipelines and datasets on prod, instead of deploying everything in repository.
Is there any powershell script where I can send list of ADF objects which I want to deploy using my CI-CD pipeline?
Instead of powershell, if there is any other way, please let me know that as well.
As per official documentation, Data factory entities depend on each other.
For example, triggers depend on pipelines, and pipelines depend on datasets and other pipelines. Selective publishing of a subset of resources could lead to unexpected behaviors and errors.
On rare occasions when you need selective publishing, consider using a hotfix.
Steps to deploy a hotfix

How to integrate powerapps with azure devops

I am doing some research for Powerapps integration with Azure DevOps.
However there is limitated information for it.
It is possible to integrate powerapps inside a Task for AzureDevops?
Based on, that we have a .zip file with the Powerapp, and we want to create a Build and Release/Deploy for several environments.
Thank You.
It is possible to integrate powerapps inside a Task for AzureDevops?
Yes it is.
You can leverage the Solution concept of the Microsoft Power Platform and the Power Apps BuildTools (preview) extension for Azure DevOps.
Update 11/2020: This is now GA and called Power Platform Build Tools
I've written a complete step-by-step guide on this topic:
A Continuous Delivery Approach for No-Code Solutions in Microsoft’s Power Platform
Bottom line:
With this build tool, you can automatically check-in a Solution into source control and deploy it using a continuous delivery approach with the help of Azure DevOps. See the screenshot for a sample configuration of the Export and Import Solution Task.
It works for everything you can organize inside a Solution, e.g.:
Power Apps
Power Automate Flows
AI Builder Models
Common Data Service Entities
It is possible to integrate powerapps inside a Task for AzureDevops?
I am afraid there is no such Task integrate powerapps for AzureDevops at this moment.
If you want to integrate powerapps with azure devops, you can follow the guide step by step:
Microsoft Teams – Integration with Visual Studio Team Services using PowerApps.
Besides, AFAIK, PowerApps should not be "Build/Deployed" through Azure Devops.
When you are developing with PowerApps, there is no way to do Source
Control. There are no source files. The only artifact you can version
control is the .zip file that you can export.
And
In PowerApps, you don’t have to build your code. Any change you make
to the application is live for you to test it. In that way it is very
productive. To publish the application you just click on the publish
button and it is live.
Check this great blog: PowerApps From A DevOps Perspective for some more details.
Hope this helps.
Solutions are a way to package your components in a single zip file and use Powerapps build tools to import your solution on to a different environment or tenant.
It is still a an improvement from manually importing each app or environment variable and then import it on to target system, but it lacks what we call as automation of deployment.
To provide an eg, I will explain what I have done, and what still constitutes of a manual task:
I created an enterprise level app using powerapp canvas model. My app consumes data from around 20 APIs. These API calls are implemented in power automate.
We have 4 environments, dev, sit, uat and prod. Now I cant keep on importing flows in each environment and change their api URLs to point to the deployed environment. So I used environment variables for each environment which stores api URLs for each environment. This can be done under solution.
Under the same solution, I added my app. So now my solution has 2 things, my app and the environment variable which consists of api URLs.
I then use powerapps build tools to move this solution from dev to sit.
Steps: use build tools tasks to perform the following
Export solution
Unpack it in git
Pack it
Import the solution.
This successfully moves my solution to sit.
But the solution environment variable still points to the dev url.
So I have to override environment variables to store sit URLs.
This manual intervention to edit environment variable is as good as doing all the tasks manually.
This was the case when PowerApps was first announced; however, this is no longer the case.
While it is technically true that there is no actual code that would be managed and deployed with a PowerApp or Flow but that doesn't mean that you can not use the power of Azure DevOps. Additionally, when creating a PowerApp / flow you would also be creating entities and even Model Driven apps - and these uses solutions - which naturally work well to deplooy within Azure DevOps.
Microsoft is building out this whole construct to enable all these to deploy...
While the whole incorporation of PowerApps and flows into Solutions is not fully baked yet - they are targeting to have this ready around the October time frame this year.
We have been talking to Microsoft about also enabling PowerApps and flows to follow the same expansion that solutions do so that they can take advantage of the full branching strategy.
So even though you would be simply exporting out zip files into your repo - you can still take advantage of the full devops pipeline which is highly recommended.
Use this component, it still on preview mode but is working fine on my side
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=microsoft-IsvExpTools.PowerApps-BuildTools

Azure API Management - Regression testing and Performance testing of APIs

Are there any built-in options to perform Regression testing and Performance testing of APIs in Azure API Management? If not, are there any options to do that within the Azure ecosystem (like VSTS Performance tests tool etc.)? Thanks!
I think there are no built-in options to perform Regression testing that available in Azure. But for performance testing, there are some.
Regression Testing
For regression.I'd recommend going with manual testing like creating Test Plan, Test Cases execute/test them manually using VSTS
Creating a Test Plan in VSTS
Creating a Test Case in VSTS
Run Manual Test in VSTS
Load/Performance Testing
There are 3 ways you can easily do this
With Visual Studio
With VSTS
Azure Portal
I prefer going with VSTS

VSTS + Octopus Deploy? Why do I see a lot of CI/CD setups with both?

I'm a developer whose transitioning into Devops. By observation, I've noticed that a lot of dev shops have started using Octopus Deploy and Azure Devops Services (AzDo, formerly VSTS), or they are starting new projects to setup devops ci/cd pipelines AND they spec to use both tools.
I've been through some quick training for both tools and though they aren't perfectly the same, AzDo seems to offer all of the same features as Octopus Deploy.
So, my question is if a company is already using AzDo for much of their version control, or anything CI/CD pipeline-related, why would you use Octopus? What benefit does it offer to use Octopus for your build and deploys to AzDo?
Note, I am very, very new to Devops. I'm just asking because at the "10,000 feet view" there doesn't seem to be any reason for Octopus if you're already using AzDo. I mention Octopus Deploy by name because I see it come up frequently. However, I assume there could be other tools that serve the same purpose of automatic build and deploying that might also integrate with AzDo. However, AzDo offers build and deploy built in one. Why split out the work?
Let me preface why I like to both build and deploy with VSTS:
Same permissioning end to end
Line of sight from end to end build and deployment
Reasons I favor Octopus Deploy over VSTS Release:
Ability to upload packages/artifacts
External ones that are maybe one off packages to get deployed for a specific release
Target Definition
When you create Targets or servers you are deploying to, you are able to add a target to one or multiple environments and assign tags/roles to a target. What does this mean? More flexible server definition rather than defining strict Agents to a pool or servers to a Deployment Group, you can allow a target to span multiple (ie: a testing server that spans your Dev and Test environments and only gets triggered on steps that are defined for that role). I realize you can accomplish similar things to this in VSTS but in my opinion it's far more cumbersome.
Variable Definition
Variables can be grouped at a global level and grouped by a specific pipeline/process (that part is similar to VSTS). Variables can also be grouped or scoped by environments or roles (above) so you are able to have different variable values per role per environment; both super granular and flexible. Places this comes in handy is if you have a backend server with a connection string and maybe 2 content delivery nodes (role - content delivery) that get slightly different values than the backend server. At the moment, I do not know (other than creating new environments) how one would accomplish the same in VSTS.
Process Definition
All of the above comes together in the process definition of Octopus Deploy. The super flexible and granular variables and target definition allows you to focus on the actual deployment process rather than getting hung up on the nuances of the UI and its limitations. One example would be defining a process where the first step would be taking something out of a load balancer from a central server, step two deploy code to delivery server one, step three put back in lb, step 4 take out node two from lb called from a central server, step 5 deploy code to node two, and last step, back into load balancer. I realize it's a very simple hypothetical, but within Octopus Deploy, it's one steady process filtered to execute on specific roles, within VSTS you would have to break that down into different agent phases and probably pipelines.
Above are really the biggest points I see to use Octopus Deploy over VSTS Release. Now why would someone use VSTS to build and OD to release/deploy? There are a lot of different factors that go into it, some are corporate drivers like having an enterprise git client that has permissions handled thru MSDN. Sometimes it's a project management driver of having work items tied tightly to commit and builds, but with the added flexibility that OD brings to the table for free/minimal cost.
Hoping this help shine a little light into maybe why some people are crossing streams and using both VSTS and OD.
A lot of good points have been made already, but it really comes down to what you need. I would venture a lot of us started using Octopus before Release Management was really a thing.
We use VSTS for all our source control and builds and then all our deployments are handled through Octopus.
When we started evaluating tools, VSTS had nothing for deployments. Even now, they are still playing catch up to Octopus in feature set.
If you are doing true multi-tenanted and multi-environment deployments, I don't think VSTS really compares. We are using Octopus with around 30 tenants, some on Azure, some on premise. We deploy a mix of web and desktop apps. We are even using Octopus to deploy some legacy VB6 and winforms applications.
Multi-Tenancy (critical for us)
VSTS added Deployment Groups a while ago which sound pretty similar to Octopus Environments before multi-tenancy was implemented. Before Octopus had true multi-tenancy (it's been around a while now), people would work around it by creating different environments per tenant, like "CustomerA - Dev", "CustomerA - Prod", etc. Now you just have your Dev/Test/Prod environments and each tenant can have variables scoped to those individual environments.
Support
Documentation is excellent and it's really easy to get up and running.
The few times I've needed to contact someone at Octopus, they've answered very quickly and knowledgeably.
Usability
Having the Octopus dashboard giving us an overview of all our projects is amazing. I don't know of anyway to do this in VSTS, without going into each individual project.
Octopus works great on a mobile device for checking deployment status and even starting new deployments.
Community
Octopus works with their customers to understand what they want and they often release draft RFCs and have several times completely changed course based on customer feedback.
If we know what sort of applications you are deploying, and to what kinds of environments, we would be able to better tailor our responses.
The features you see today in VSTS weren't there a few years ago, so there might be an historical reason.
But I want to state here some non-opinionated reasons that may suggest an organization to opt for different tools instead of one.
Separate responsibility and access levels
Multiple CI tools in dev teams (orgs that are using also Jenkins or TeamCity or else) and need to standardize and control deployments
An org needs a feature available only in Octopus (maybe Multi-tenancy)
Octopus does a great job of focusing on deployments. Features reach octopus before vsts, support is local and responsive. That, and you never run out of build/release minutes!
Seriously though, I just like to support smaller companies where possible and if all features were equal, I'd still pick them.
The big reason in the past was that TFS On prem and early VSTS did NOT support non-Microsoft (.Net) code very well if at all. You could utilize the source control and work features of TFS and then use octopus/Jenkins etc... as the build release parts to cover code that TFS didn't really know what to do with.
Also the release pipelines used to be very simplistic and not that useful where the other products were all plugin based and could do (almost) anything you needed them to. Most of that has changed so that VSTS is much better at working with Non-Microsoft code bases then it used to be. Over time integrations get created inside a companies walls and undoing those decisions can be more painful then just having "too many" tools. Also I feel like there is just more people out there familiar with those tools since they have been mature longer and cover a larger part of the development world then VSTS has in the past.
To fully implement CD you need both. VSTS runs tests and is a build server. OD isn’t. VSTS is light on sophisticated application installations. And if you are provisioning environments, IaC style, you need Terraform in addition. Don’t try to shoehorn everything into a single tool. DevOps requires a whole ecosystem. The reasons are not historical.

How to manage database context changes in production / CI

I've spent the past few months developing a webApi solution that I'm ready to push up to Azure and hook into an Azure SQL Database. It was built with EF Code First.
I'm wondering what standard approaches there are to making changes to the database while in production. I've been using database initializers up to this point but they all blow away data and re-seed.
I have a feeling this question is too broad for a concise answer, so I'd like to ask: what terminology / processes / resources should a developer look into when designing a continuous integration workflow for a solution built with EF Code First and ASP.NET WebAPI, hosted as an Azure Service and hooked up to Azure SQL?
On the subject of database migration, there was an interesting article on ASP.NET about this subject: Strategies for Database Development and Deployment.
Also since you are using EF Code First you will be able to use Code First Migrations here for database changes. This will allow you to better manage the changes you make to the database.
I'm not sure how far you want to go with continuous integration but since you are using Azure it might be worth it to have a look at Continuous delivery to Windows Azure by using Team Foundation Service. Although it relies on TFS in the cloud it's of course also possible to configure it with for example Jenkins. However this does require a bit more work.
I use this technic:
1- Create a clone database for your development environment if it doesn't exist.
2- Make the necessary changes in your dev environment and dev
database.
3- Deploy to your staging environment.
4- If you added some static datas
that should also exist in your prod database, use a tool like
SQLDataExaminer to find the data differences and execute the
insert, update, deletes for according rows. Use Schema Compare in VS2012 to find differences between your dev
and prod environment by selecting source as dev and target as prod.
And execute the script in your prod.
5- Swap the environments