My company creates a lot of projects in Azure DevOps, and they all have the same structure -- same members, same permissions. Each project has different Git repositories within it, but that's the only thing (other than the name) that differs between them. It would be helpful to have a template so that everything is set up correctly each time we need a new one.
I don't see a way to do this through the web interface. I have the sense that I could probably do it with a script, but I don't know where to begin with that (including which tool to use). Where should I start?
It looks like there is now a way to do this without the Azure DevOps CLI (as long as your project that you want to template is one of the supported types (Agile, Scrum and Basic)). There is a tool available here that will step you through the process.
There is also an excellent blog post here that gives you an overview.
Yes, you can accomplish most of the configuration by script. For the beginning you might take a look at the Azure Devops CLI, which allows you to perform several actions on Azure Devops, like:
Create projects, Users and configure security
Create repositories, pipelines and set branch permissions
Create and manage work items
...
I am in a microservices project where we are creating around 120 microservices. How do I configure azure devops for this project? Do I have to create a new project for each microservice? I would like to keep the dash for project monitoring
I would recommend that you create an organization and a project.
Then you can use create a git repository for each microservice, 120 microservices in 120 repos.
You can read about how Microsoft uses git here.
TL;DR version quoted below.
Mono Repo or Multi-Repo with Git
It's worth pausing to reflect that this isn't the only way. While
we've elected to have a single monolithic repository (the
"mono-repo"), other products at Microsoft use a multi-repo approach.
Skype, for instance, has hundreds of small repositories that get
stitched together in various combinations to create their many
different clients, services, and tools. Especially for teams embracing
microservices, multi-repo can be the right approach. TFS/Azure DevOps,
like many products at Microsoft, began as a monolith, and its code
organization reflects that
I am working with azure dev ops and I am trying to organize 3 different projects with the same team with one board. Is this possible in Azure DevOps?
Because if I use a planning board for each project (but the people are the same in each project) the weekly sprint planning is kinda confusing.
Like I said I dream of 1 planning board but to handle epics task etc from 3 different projects in it and assign a task from all project to one person.
Thank you.
Whitin a same organization it is recommended to work with a single Azure DevOps project, which minimizes the maintenance of administrative tasks and allows full flexibility to cross-link objects (see when to add another project to my organization).
For each application in your organization create a repository under the same single project.
And to manage and configure your team work have a look on this link.
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.
We have an application that is comprised of multiple distinct components (different functions / languages).
Is it possible in IBM Bluemix to use a single Track & Plan feature to manage the work items for the components but keep the source code in separate git repositories? For example, I would like to have one backlog for the overall application which is then backed by 5 separate git repos which house the individual components (project-frontend, project-backend, project-queue etc..).
If this is not possible does anybody have a pattern that has worked in streamlining the overall Track & Plan and still enabling the delivery pipeline / managing individual git repos? Ideally I'd like to centralize task management but keep the code distributed.
As of now, there is not a way to manage distributed git repos from a single Track & Plan project in an integrated fashion. That is not to say that it cannot be done manually, but you would need to link to commits in the remote repos in a given work item.
This can be done through the Links tab of any given work item and using the Add SVN Revisions or Add Related Artifacts. This would allow you to link to the remote repos (whether in IDS, GitHub, or private SCM tooling), while still leveraging Track & Plan as an overall planning repo.
Some of this is due to the way projects are constructed in IBM Bluemix DevOps Services today. A single project has the notion of a single git repo, a single Track & Plan instance, and a single Build Pipeline. Some of these requirements are expanding, but the platform provides integration capabilities to work with your code the way you need to right now. For example, project owners can build from remote GitHub repos in the project's Build Pipeline, so that code can be managed as you see fit, but built and deployed on IBM Bluemix.