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Introducing Azure DevOps

azure.microsoft.com

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Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#61

Post by GordonS »

manigandham wrote: post #56
GordonS wrote: post #51

I've been using VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) for a few years now, and I think it's great. But this looks like they've just changed the URL and stuck the name "Azure DevOps" onto the VSTS site? Even the pricing and plans seem to be the same - I really don't get how they're talking like they're launching something new, rather than just having a rebranding exercise after buying GitHub.

That's exactly what it is: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/team-services/ Although there have been slight tweaks and UI/UX updates.

There have already been quite a lot of UI/UX updates over the past 6 months of so. TBH, I kind of wish you'd leave it the hell alone for a bit!

In particular, I'm not a fan of the most recent changes to the 'build and release' pages. To edit the build pipeline, the edit link is at the top of the list of builds, rather than at the top of the list of build pipelines... I end up searching for the link every. single. time :(

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#62

Post by GordonS »

ethomson wrote: post #55
GordonS wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 weeks ago there was a different outage that meant no hosted build agents were working in the west europe region, and it lasted for more than 24 hours. Now, what I hated the most about this was the communication - there wasn't any. Why not email impacted users to let them know you're aware and working on a fix?

You can subscribe to get emails for availability incidents on our service availability blog, https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vsoservice/ (it's in the right-hand sidebar).

Huh, I hadn't noticed that - I've subscribed now.

I do still think it would be better if you proactively sent out emails only to affected customers though.

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#63

Post by merlincorey »

samstave wrote: post #35
dsr_ wrote: post #7

The term "DevOps" is now meaningless. The search for a new short term to describe "operations and development teams working together using high quality software tools to define, automate and distribute configuration and management information, integrating QA, release management and security" has begun.

That is a great sentence, thanks for writing that. I personally dont like the term devops either... I prefer a more specific definition fo a role.

DevOps is not a role, it's a culture and set of processes to improve speed of delivery through interaction and teamwork between development and operations.

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#64

Post by styfle »

flyingswift wrote: post #3
SamuelAdams wrote: post #2

Is this just a rebranding? As a long time user of VSTS, I am failing to see how Azure DevOps is different from VSTS. Boards, CI/CD, testing - that's already part of VSTS, and has been for quite some time. Is Microsoft just rebranding for keyword searching or something? Or are there actual technical changes / new features that are being introduced?

This is a rebranding yes. VSTS was a bad name that confused potential customers because they thought of the IDE, and so no one really knew what the product was from the name alone. (Work on VSTS team)

Won't the new name confuse potential customers because they think of the Azure cloud for deployment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953823

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#65

Post by manigandham »

ethomson wrote: post #37

PM for Azure DevOps here. The team is really excited about this launch, and many of us are here to answer questions on Azure DevOps, or any of the individual services like Azure Pipelines, the new GitHub Marketplace app, or our free build offer for open source projects.

The VM based build agents are slow, especially compared to more modern CI/CD systems that today use a Docker/container based approach for each build step, along with a persistent store between each step.

Is something like this going to arrive soon?

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#66

Post by manigandham »

GordonS wrote: post #61
manigandham wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what it is: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/team-services/ Although there have been slight tweaks and UI/UX updates.

There have already been quite a lot of UI/UX updates over the past 6 months of so. TBH, I kind of wish you'd leave it the hell alone for a bit! In particular, I'm not a fan of the most recent changes to the 'build and release' pages. To edit the build pipeline, the edit link is at the top of the list of builds, rather than at the top of the list of build pipelines... I end up searching for the link every. single. tim…

I don't work on it, you should reply to the PM on this page or reach them via twitter/email to discuss further. Seems they are willing to listen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953476

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#67

Post by tbrownaw »

tootie wrote: post #16
dsr_ wrote: post #7

The term "DevOps" is now meaningless. The search for a new short term to describe "operations and development teams working together using high quality software tools to define, automate and distribute configuration and management information, integrating QA, release management and security" has begun.

It makes almost no sense for a tech platform to be a DevOps tool. It's like saying saying a programming language is better at supporting agile. DevOps is a matter of how you assign responsibility to people in your org. Not how they get there.

Some languages are better at supporting agile development. The idea behind agile is that things change, so your language needs to help rather than hinder those changes. It should make separation of concerns / single-responsibility easy, rather than something you have to fight the language for.

The idea behind DevOps is integration between development and operations, in a way that eases automation of tasks where they interact. A platform absolutely can provide a structured way to do that integration, or can interfere with it.

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#68

Post by vtbassmatt »

manigandham wrote: post #65
ethomson wrote: post #37

PM for Azure DevOps here. The team is really excited about this launch, and many of us are here to answer questions on Azure DevOps, or any of the individual services like Azure Pipelines, the new GitHub Marketplace app, or our free build offer for open source projects.

The VM based build agents are slow, especially compared to more modern CI/CD systems that today use a Docker/container based approach for each build step, along with a persistent store between each step. Is something like this going to arrive soon?

[PM on Azure Pipelines here.]

We've just finished building the initial version of container jobs [1]. A job groups up a number of steps -- we haven't yet decided if or how we should implement container-per-step. I'd be interested in your thoughts and use cases. In case I miss you here, my email is mattc@xbox.com.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/devops/pipelines/process/co...

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#69

Post by e12e »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20
dsr_ wrote: post #7

The term "DevOps" is now meaningless. The search for a new short term to describe "operations and development teams working together using high quality software tools to define, automate and distribute configuration and management information, integrating QA, release management and security" has begun.

> "operations and development teams working together using high quality software tools to define, automate and distribute configuration and management information, integrating QA, release management and security" This description has enough wiggle room that you could sail an aircraft carrier through it. I don't think there can be a short term to describe all that and stay meaningful; the term "devops" itself has alwa…

Not really, it's all in the first bit:

"devops: operations and development teams working together."

Re: Introducing Azure DevOps

#70

Post by ethomson »

GordonS wrote: post #51

I've been using VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) for a few years now, and I think it's great. But this looks like they've just changed the URL and stuck the name "Azure DevOps" onto the VSTS site? Even the pricing and plans seem to be the same - I really don't get how they're talking like they're launching something new, rather than just having a rebranding exercise after buying GitHub.

At the risk of sounding philosophical, when you're building a cloud service that gets continuous delivery of features... when is that simply an iteration, versus something new?

Anyway, I'm not a philosopher. But I don't think that this is simply a "rebranding exercise", and it's been in the works for quite a while; it's not related to GitHub (which, for the record, we have not yet acquired).

We've made a huge engineering effort into the individual components that make up Azure DevOps, and those deserve (in my opinion) to be recognized. So, now "Azure Pipelines" gets to shine on its own.

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