How To Create Agent Pools In Azure DevOps

In the world of modern DevOps practices, automation is key to seamless software delivery. Azure DevOps provides a powerful way to automate the build and deployment processes. One of the essential components that makes this possible is build agents and agent pools. In this article, we’ll walk through setting up build agents and creating agent pools in Azure DevOps to streamline your Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) workflows.

What Are Build Agents in Azure DevOps?
Build agents are the workers that execute the tasks defined in your build and release pipelines. These tasks include compiling code, running tests, creating deployment packages, and more. When a pipeline runs, it requests an agent from an agent pool to perform the tasks.

There are two types of agents in Azure DevOps:

Microsoft-hosted agents: These are provided by Azure DevOps and maintained by Microsoft. They are pre-configured and automatically updated.
Self-hosted agents: These are agents you can set up on your own infrastructure, providing greater control over software dependencies, environment configuration, and security.

For a visual walkthrough of the concepts covered in this article, check out my YouTube Video:-

What Are Agent Pools?
Agent pools group build agents together. When you create a pipeline in Azure DevOps, you assign it to an agent pool, which will manage the distribution of tasks across available agents. Each project in Azure DevOps can use one or more agent pools, providing a flexible and scalable way to manage your build environment.

Why Use Agent Pools?

• Resource control: Manage and assign specific agents to different projects.
• Cost efficiency: Self-hosted agents reduce the need to rely on Microsoft-hosted ones, which may incur additional costs after free tier limits.
• Custom environments: Self-hosted agents allow you to configure the environment for specific tasks, such as custom libraries or tools.

How To Create an Agent Pool in Azure DevOps
Follow these steps to create an agent pool in Azure DevOps:

Step 1: Navigate to Organization Settings

• First, sign in to your Azure DevOps account.
• Go to your organization settings by clicking on the gear icon in the lower-left corner.

Step 2: Access the Agent Pools Section

• In the settings menu, under the Pipelines category, click on Agent pools.
• Here, you will see the list of existing agent pools for your organization.

Step 3: Create a New Agent Pool

• To create a new pool, click on the Add pool button at the top.
• Name your pool something descriptive (e.g., “Linux Agents” or “Windows Build Pool”).
• Select the option if you want the pool to be used by all projects or only specific ones.
• Click Create to finalize the pool.

Step 4: Add Self-hosted Agents to the Pool (Optional)
If you’re using self-hosted agents, you’ll need to add them manually to the pool:

1. Download the agent package for your operating system.
2. Configure and install the agent on your machine using the provided script or executable.
3. Register the agent with Azure DevOps by providing your organization URL, agent pool name, and authentication token.

How to Configure Pipelines to Use an Agent Pool
Once you’ve set up the agent pool, you’ll need to assign your pipelines to use the pool:

1. Open your project and navigate to Pipelines.
2. Select the pipeline you want to modify and click on Edit.
3. In the pipeline YAML or classic editor, specify the agent pool by adding the following configuration:

pool:
  name: YourAgentPoolName

This tells Azure DevOps to use agents from the specified pool to run your pipeline tasks.

Managing Agent Pools
Once your agent pools and agents are set up, you can monitor and manage them in Azure DevOps:

• View pool activity: See the list of jobs running on each agent.
• Manage agents: Start, stop, or remove agents from the pool.
• Agent capabilities: Define custom capabilities like installed software or system configuration for more precise job distribution.

Best Practices for Agent Pools and Build Agents

• Use separate pools for different environments: For example, maintain separate pools for production, staging, and development environments to avoid conflicts.
• Scale your pools: For high-demand pipelines, consider adding more agents to a pool to reduce queue times.
• Monitor agent performance: Ensure that agents in the pool have adequate resources (CPU, RAM, etc.) to handle your build and deployment processes efficiently.

Conclusion
Setting up build agents and agent pools in Azure DevOps enables you to manage and scale your CI/CD processes effectively. Whether you use Microsoft-hosted or self-hosted agents, agent pools provide the flexibility to optimize your pipelines based on your team’s needs. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can easily create and manage your agent pools to automate and streamline your software delivery pipeline.

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