For all of our clients here at Code Vanguard, the first thing we do when starting a new project is to build out an automated build and release pipeline. We found that this minimum DevOps implementation has had a measurable effect on our productivity. And while there is an initial time investment, we have found that adopting this process has:
- reduced bugs
- increased understanding of disparate parts of the solution
- reduced time to delivery (sometimes by a factor of 50x)
- reduced non-building code checked in to the master branch to 0%
The process has time and again proven itself more than worth the initial time investment. Below is the basic process we use:
Generally, we use Azure DevOps as our tool set, but this general process can be used with whatever DevOps tools your team is comfortable with.
Goals
In this series of posts, we will be covering the steps for getting your project from nothing to using a basic DevOps process build on Azure DevOps and git. By the end of this series, our hope is that you will be able to:
- Create automated builds and releases
- Maintaining master branch integrity
- Enforce automated testing
- Enforce code reviews
Additionally, by the end of this series, you will have a better understanding of the patterns and practices of DevOps, and have implemented some of the tools in your own organization.
Prerequisites
To get started, you will need:
- a free Azure DevOps subscription
For demonstration purposes, we will be working with the ASP.Net Core Web Application template. This will give us code that we can build, test, and deploy. I will be covering the setup of the repository and our first build in the next post!
Conclusion
And that’s it! Once you’ve got Azure DevOps subscription in place, you’re ready for the first step. Check out the next blog post for instructions on how to set up your repository.
This post is part of the DevOps for your Organization series, where we walk through some basic steps you can take to move your organization towards the DevOps process. The full series can be found here. If you’d like Code Vanguard to help your organization with its DevOps process, feel free to reach out to us!