Azure DevOps Services

Formerly VSTS

For small enterprises to big, it applies to all for efficient and effective product management with full traceability in built.

ADO is well suited for the visibility of day-to-day tasks and responsibilities as well as things such as Features, user stories, etc. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any scenario where it might not be well suited, as you can customize ADO to your liking to a degree.

Definitely great for developing .net applications and keeping track of a backlog in a SCRUM environment. I think managing a backlog and the associated schedule are also very strong.

I would think that managing an application with a non-microsoft environment would be less appropriate (ie: a node.js back-end application with a react front end, for instance...)

Azure DevOps was a one-stop solution for sprint planning, Test planning Pipeline integration as we have dev, test, and sandbox env and wanted to have the latest/clean code in all env. It was also helpful in creating dashboards showing daily progress by developing charts, burn-down graphs, defect tracking, and follow-ups.

Scenarios where it is suited:

1. Separating the builds into specific purposes into different pipelines
2. Automatically performing dependency checks, deploying the build and running tests on it
3. Tracking the status of different stages

Scenarios where it is less appropriate:

1. Companies which work on the waterfall model
2. Companies that don't utilize CI/CD

Azure DevOps Services provide many different useful services, some of which I'm using is the Azure boards and pipelines. It is very useful to keep track of the status of each task within projects. The query function is also useful to check on tasks per person/status easily. However, the UI can be more user-friendly.

Azure DevOps is great for agile software development with larger teams as the included features for managing user stories, sprints, and backlogs allow larger dev teams to more easily plan, track, and deliver software releases. It is also great for CI/CD because of the options for automating build, testing, and deployment processes. The integration with various Azure services makes it easy to deploy in cloud environments, and therefore it is an ideal tool for us as we use Microsoft Azure extensively for hosting our business applications. It's less useful for smaller projects or individual developers as many of the features will simply never be used, and there are more lightweight tools available. There are also better tools available for task tracking in non-software development projects or if your organization relies heavily on non-Microsoft products.

It's great to use when you use Scrum, Repos, and CI/CD. This way, you don't need multiple applications, but you can just use Azure DevOps. For development, I find it pretty good. You can link your items to your Pull request, and you will be able to see what changes have been made. The only downside is that if you want to make your board visible to a lot of stakeholders, it won't be that easy.

We have been using it for at least 5 years and it's rock-solid in its function and always adds new options and features. We started using it because of its free 5 user private repositories function. Now GitHub does the same (and it's also from Microsoft) but Azure DevOps Services offers more options and tools, so we will stick with this service.

Azure DevOps is well suited as a single platform for all DevOps processes. It has everything for a product from the repository, work items board, pipelines, test plans and execution, artifacts, etc. It has also a range of project numbers and pipeline execution time for free each month to help new developers or startups. It is appropriate for teams without DevOps members and standards.

In our case, Azure DevOps services is well suited with applications hosted on Azure, such as D365, on-premises or custom Applications are hard to implement, different aspects won't work properly. We are still new to using it, maybe we haven't found the best way to apply it.

It is well suited for managing software development. Code management, deployment, work item tracking. It allows remote teams to work together easily.

if you need a CI/CD pipeline for your company, especially if you have already been using Microsoft Software Development Suite, Azure DevOps Services (formerly VSTS) is a very good choice. You can build a release pipeline very easily and deploy your applications very quickly. They are also easy to maintain, especially if you are a big company.

It is well suited for large and distributed teams, developing cloud-native applications in a fast fail-fast approach. It will enable seamless development and support different platforms in integrations. It is of less value if the teams are small and located together and also in cases where the application runs on legacy software.

Azure DevOps provide a great resource when you want a "soup to nuts" approach to building software and tracking its deployments and updates. Using the project board to create stories and tasks, you can easily create code branches in which to do the work, which provides a great audit trail to when bugs were fixed or features completed. By using the pipelines, you can allow automation to deploy completed work, track its history, and easily roll back if needs be.

Primarily best for Microsoft dev houses (C#/.NET, TypeScript/JavaScript). Provides all the features you'd expect for an agile development workflow all in one package.

Azure DevOps, on the whole, is very easy to set up and use if you have any experience with Agile processes. The initial barriers to entry are extremely low as the first 5 users can leverage the tool for free. I found the overall feature/functionality easier to use and more approachable than similar tools. It is also leaps and bounds better than TFS if you haven't looked at it in a while. If you are already a git user, this is directly integrated with git repos, making the transition easy. The tool is also integrated with many other Microsoft products, so if you are a Microsoft-centric shop, you can leverage the broader ecosystem.

If you are looking at Azure DevOps, you know why you need this. It is an inexpensive development process software. You need a place to host your remote git repo. You want to be able to track work and reference it later. You want to build out a full CI/CD pipeline based on commits. This is not a simple ticket tracking system. If that is all you want, go elsewhere!

No matter how many developers you have within the company, a robust source code control/DevOps pipeline is a must. When a new software development project is needed it can be initiated within DevOps by any team member/manager. The project can be tracked from start to finish with alerts and message ability directly in the product. The QA team can also monitor and provide feedback directly within the product.

Before using Azure DevOps, the department was calculating metrics by hand. It was a very tedious process that, at times required duplicate effort. Once we added the online boards, we were able to let the cards automatically calculate dates and provide us with team metrics instantly. It is also great for being able to easily move features from one team to another. Before we added all teams in the same project, it would require us to re-enter the features. We move features around a lot so that has been a big help. I also like the board customization, not all of our teams follow the exact same Agile flow, so allowing each board to have its own columns, states, and notifications give flexibility to each team.

Although hosting Azure DevOps in-house with their on-prem version is manageable, it seems that Azure DevOps is better suited for development shops that are able to utilize the cloud version. That said, if your medium to large-sized company is like ours and need your ALM tools on-prem, be prepared to invest in multiple, full-time staff dedicated to administration if choosing Azure DevOps. For small companies, both cloud and on-prem versions are acceptable.

Azure DevOps is well suited for any platform you are running. In my case, it was a great Chef cookbook pipeline solution that required no overhead or setup, cost nothing, and worked great. It works well with on-prem systems, systems in Azure, systems in AWS, and even systems in Google Cloud. Honestly, it's a really great multi-platform tool in my opinion.

Azure DevOps is by far the leader out there. If you are a Microsoft shop there is no need to look elsewhere. This will handle everything you have with ease and then some. If you have older code then you may need to build some customizations to make it work but anything recent is seamless.

For development teams with a history of Microsoft tools alignment, Azure DevOps provides familiar patterns and interfaces. And for product management / product marketing users, the use of use of data entry and the Excel integration provide for easy on-ramps for learning and proficiency development. For teams that have used tools such as FogBugz, the boards and case layouts may take a little getting used to.

Team System is the best solution if you use Visual Studio Professional or Enterprise as your main development platform, especially if you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. Even though it can be used with any development project management framework it is better in an informal environment using Scrum.