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Arindam Mitra
Arindam Mitra

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Azure Devops best practises: Learning by doing

Greetings my fellow Technology Advocates and Specialists.

In this Session, I will provide you real-time insights on AZURE DEVOPS BEST PRACTISES: LEARNING BY DOING.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:-
For Ease of Explanation, I will provide Best Practises details for Azure Devops: REPOSITORIES, PIPELINES, BOARDS & WIKI
BEST PRACTISES FOR REPOSITORIES:-
Proper Folder Structure per Repository.
Repository Security, if we have multiple Repositories under same DevOps Project.
Branching Strategy: 1) Feature to Development Branch, 2) Development to Main Branch.
Clean Commit History with Human Readable comments per commit.
Build Validation for Main Branch.
Pull Request (PR) must have an Approval in Place to review the changes (Part of Code Review).
HOW BRANCHING STRATEGY WORKS:-
1. Per Developer(s) – Working on Feature Branch.
2. All Developer(s) Changes in Feature Branch are then Merged into Development Branch by Squash Commit using Pull Request (PR).
3. Feature Branch DELETED post Squash Commit to Development Branch.
4. All changes committed in Development Branch is then pushed to MAIN Branch by Squash Commit using a Single Pull Request (PR).
5. Development Branch REMAINS post Squash Commit to MAIN Branch.
6. Development and MAIN Branch should be in complete Sync (0 Commits Behind).
BEST PRACTISES FOR PIPELINES:-
1. YAML Based pipeline over Classic as it can be Version controlled.
2. Reusable Templates.
3. Proper Folder Structure for Each Pipeline.
4. Proper Naming Convention for Each Pipeline.
5. Pipeline Name and Folder should have a relevance with the Code Repository.
6. Setup Pipeline Environment(s), Attach Approval Gate and Associate Pipeline(s) appropriately per Environment.
7. Avoid using Pipeline Local Variable Groups or Variable Groups associated with Key Vault. All Key value pair needs to stored in Key Vault and should be retrieved as Pipeline Task.
8. Use of Azure DevOps Marketplace Extensions.
BEST PRACTISES FOR BOARDS:-
1. If a Single DevOps Project is used to host Multiple Application Projects, then there should be distinct Boards Per Application Project to manage Backlogs and Sprints.
2. Permissions should be set accordingly for Single/Multiple Board(s) preferably using AAD Groups.
3. Pull Request (PR) should be linked with Work items in DevOps Boards so that when Pull Request (PR) is approved, it closes the Work item at the same time. This automatically puts a comment with the link to commit against the linked work item.
BEST PRACTISES FOR WIKI:-
1. Create Wiki as Repo to version control.
2. Use Mermaid Diagrams below – a) Flow Chart b) Gantt Chart c) Sequence Diagram

Hope You Enjoyed the Session!!!

Stay Safe | Keep Learning | Spread Knowledge

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