Microsoft Azure DevOps Reviews

We're doing a full continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), continuous testing (CT), security, delivery, and monitoring.

We're currently using TFS 2013, TFS 2017, Azure DevOps Server 2019 update one, and Azure DevOps services, which is the SaaS cloud platform. I manage all of these.

It is deployed on Azure DevOps Server and Azure Services' private cloud.

They have been lately adding features to the services on a regular basis. Every two weeks, they are adding functionality to Azure DevOps Services to match it with what Azure DevOps Server or on-prem would offer. So, we continue to get more robust functionality.

My favorite right now is that they are starting to open up the API availability within Azure DevOps Services. 

Another thing that I like about Azure DevOps is that you can use it with any of the products that are on the market. You can integrate it with Jenkins and other open-source products to complete that fully functional CI, CD, CT, CM, and CS pipeline. It continues to enhance. 

We are currently in the process of moving all of our on-prem to the cloud platform. We are trying to make that move and host the majority of our DevOps services in the cloud because the cloud is where most of the things are going nowadays. However, the process of this transfer is not straightforward, and it could be a lot easier. Microsoft hasn't provided the maturity for migration tools. It could be a lot easier in that respect.

I want to see them continue to advance the API capabilities. They could add some more robust functionality to the administrative layer within ADO services. There are a lot of configuration elements that you need to take care of at the organization level and the project configuration level from an administrative capacity. When you're dealing with process templates and things of that nature, you have to do them all manually. Being able to automate some of that using scripts or API functionality would be really nice.

I have been using this solution for about nine years.

It has actually been pretty stable. Some of the early gen ones were not so stable. Before Microsoft started communicating with the end-users, they would make changes in the middle of the workday, which was a bit frustrating because things would change, which would impact the end customers because they weren't expecting that change. Microsoft wouldn't communicate with tenant administrators and tenant owners, but now, Microsoft has gotten a lot better about articulating their roadmap and communicating when those kinds of changes are coming down the pipeline. We are now able to communicate that out to our tenants and the end-users working within our projects. There is a lot better communication in that respect, which makes it easier for us to make customers aware of what might be coming, what is going to cause changes for them, what are the timeframes in which those things are going to hit their views, and what to expect from those things and additional functionalities.

For the cloud, it has been really good. For on-prem too, it is easy enough to scale out. TFS also has always been pretty easy to scale out.

In terms of the number of users, currently, we're in a transition because we were just acquired by another company. So, we're leaving our parent company, and we're going to a new company. The numbers that I have are in flux. Our current numbers are at about 600 for just our existing or old company. I've been asked to stop onboarding my users and projects until we move our current organization into our new operational tenant in the new company, but I'm projecting that we'll have between 2,000 to 4,000 people.

I use it all the time. They're very good when you get to the right queue. So, when it is working, it is great. I would rate them a nine and a half out of ten because I always think people have room for improvement, but they've been very good and supportive.

It works great for us especially now because we've kind of been divested from our old company to our new company. When we were with our old company, it was a little bit mired because of the way our enterprise architecture was. My requests didn't go to a North American team. It went to an EU team, and then I had to work within EU hours to get support, whereas I am in North America. That was a little tricky. Our old parent company was parented in the UK, Ireland, and Scotland.

I've used other solutions in tandem, and I have been an administrator for them. For example, I've used Jira and Confluence products, which is Atlassian. I've also used Remedy, but I'm not sure if they're still in the project management. I have also managed HP Performance Center and Tricentis. I've actually been administrating these for the last two years for this company.

I also use UCD, which is another very similar product. It does a lot of the same things and is also agnostic, just like Azure DevOps. You can use both of these with any of the products that are on the market.  

It is pretty straightforward on the administrative side, but I've been working with this technology for a long time. It really falls in line with the majority of Microsoft products. If you're familiar with the Microsoft stack, it follows their pretty standard setup. You go through a similar process. It is just about knowing the nuances that Microsoft has when you're doing a farm configuration or a farm setup and the recommended prerequisites before you get started.

If we're talking about new end-users who are going from an older version of TFS to Azure DevOps Server or Azure DevOps Services, there is going to be a bit of a delta because the technology is different. There is a slight learning curve. Of course, it has got fancier bells and whistles and a jazzier user interface. It has softer edges and things have moved from left to right. Things that you found on the left side have again moved back over to the right side for administrative or usability functions. Your security elements and the things that you used to see on the left side have again switched back to the right side. These are the kinds of nuances about which you would need to educate your end-users. You need to get them used to the boards and how to use those. If your company is transitioning from a CMI model to an Agile model, it is going to be very important for the folks who are administrating your projects and your project managers to know how to configure the projects themselves, how to use Teams, and how to use permissions. Security becomes even more important because a lot of that really influences how you see the information within your project, and how you manage your boards, your sprints, and the work items that you allocate to your scrums or sprint users.

As you're going through different stages of your project, you have your pipelines and repos where your more development-centric users are going to be. I try to allocate out two different kinds of users that we're going to have and target them when I'm educating my folks. You have a kind of power user, and you have your regular contributor user. It is important to make this distinction because there are folks who are going to be doing basic or just regular contributor work. They will just contribute to the work items that are on a board or within a sprint. You're also going to have users who need to be slightly elevated, which is going to be that basic plus test plan. You need to understand how those affect your subscription and billing towards that subscription and how to manage that when they're not actively using it. You need to monitor this and enroll them back to a stakeholder so that you're not constantly incurring costs against your pay-as-you-go subscription costs. Everything is pay-as-you-go once you get into the cloud.

I would ask those who are looking into implementing Microsoft Azure DevOps if they are already on the Microsoft stack of products. If they are, I would highly recommend them to use Azure DevOps Services or Azure DevOps, because they're already paying for that as part of their E-agreement. So, they should take full advantage of that because it is part of their licensing agreements. They should exploit what they're paying for because they are already paying a lot of money for Microsoft products.

Both UCD and ADO are the best products in the current DevOps space right now. They're both agnostic, and you can plug and play and integrate them with the majority of the tools in the market. You can integrate them with Jenkins and other open-source products, and open-source is where everything is going when you move to the cloud. Having that flexibility and viability within your company and business, no matter whether you're a small or large company, is a huge benefit. That will allow you to be flexible and deliver to on-prem or container.

Microsoft is extremely flexible, and they are listening to feedback and hearing what customers are saying. I've worked with Microsoft for almost 20 years now, but I took kind of a two-year sabbatical. Most of that time, I was developing out their SharePoint Online O365 platform. I stepped away for two years and then I transitioned over to DevOps because they really weren't taking feedback that was being provided by customers, and they were ignoring the customer experience, but their new CEO has kind of refocused Microsoft's outlook on the customer experience and is putting the priority back where it needs to be. They're doing a much better job in terms of incorporating feedback. They're continuing to advance and advent their product, and they are keeping ahead of and staying in touch with what technology is doing from a CI/CD pipeline perspective. This is why I am looking forward to continuing to use them.

I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a nine out of ten.

We are using it for the source-code repository, automated bill process, very limited automated testing, and tracking trouble tickets or feature requests. We are using its latest version.

The automated bill feature is most valuable. As with most software developers, I can build code on my machine, but if one of my coworkers can't build the same code on theirs, there are always issues in trying to track it down. The automated bill process makes it a lot easier to track down where the issues are and find out what bugs aren't being included for whatever reason.

They should expand it from just a PC, software, or server development platform to other kinds of software or engineering systems so that it is not necessarily built around a normal PC with a server.

I would like to see the ability to write my own scripts in my own compiled program or online. Right now, there are things that you can do in the user interface, but you can't do them programmatically and vice versa. I want to see them both. If I can do it in a script, I should be able to do it from the user interface, and if I can do it in the user interface, I should be able to do it in a script.

I have been using this solution for a total of four years.

From what we've used it for so far, I have not seen any problems.

We're using perhaps 10% of what it is capable of doing. It is far more capable than what we are using right now. With further experimentation and training, I'll probably go from 10% utilization of its capabilities to about 50% or 60% in the next couple of months. We'll never use 100% of what it is capable of doing, but it should handle 95% of everything we need to do. We can always write our own plugins to handle the side things that we need.

Scalability is not really applicable with the code that we write, but the build times and things like that typically take under 15 seconds before we get our responses back. So, it works extremely well.

In terms of the number of users, there are six of us who are software developers. Some of the managers might also partially use the reporting capabilities.

I haven't called them up.

I've used JIRA and a number of different systems going back almost 20 years. We were doing our development using Microsoft tools, and it just made sense to use what they integrate with. Azure DevOps is the perfect environment because we're using Microsoft technology for other stuff. It is always going to have slight favoritism towards the other Microsoft tools.

The basic setup works very quickly, but there are so many things and options.

We did it ourselves, which is one of the problems. We don't know what we're doing.

I don't know what we pay, but I do know what I've seen online. If we switched to JIRA, we will basically have to double our costs because we still have to pay for the DevOps licensing. We're probably spending $100 a month on it. It has only standard licensing fees.

It is a really complicated product. All DevOps stuff is complicated. The advice that I would give to anybody doing DevOps is to have a goal in mind of what you want to do. Then the product will do what you wanted it to do. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a four out of ten because I don't know it enough to rate it.

My team uses this solution for the CI/CD deployment, and code check-ins.

We are also using Azure Boards for tracking our work, all of the requirements, the backlogs the sprints, and the release planning.

What I like the most is that it is easy to comprehend, and it's easy to use.

The simplicity is very good and the customer experience is also great.

I am not suggesting this solution should be cheaper. I would like to see a bucket of licenses. for example, 10 licenses or 100 licenses that could be monitored to know how many of those licenses have been used. The price would be deducted accordingly.

I should not have to contact Microsoft daily to request a license or two. There should be a mechanism in place where you are able to find out where you are out of 100 licenses, or that you have used 90 licenses in that year.

I should be given a credit line of 10 licenses at the end of the year or at the end of the month.

It should be easier to manage licenses, especially because it's in the cloud. You should know the usage and based on the usage, you should be able to make decisions.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps for one year.

We are using the latest version.

It's a stable product. I have not experienced any issues.

This is an area that has yet to be explored fully. We haven't taken it to this level.

We are a team of 25 to 30 members, which is fine for us. Every time we scale up we need a new license and that takes time, it's not just a click and it's done.

I don't know if it will be scalable for 200 to 300 people.

Previously, I was working with Jira.

I was not involved in the installation. My team completed it.

Price is an area that could be improved. There are products on the market with a fixed price of 50 or 100 people, you are a bucket price. 

With Azure, you have to pay for every user.

It's good to have a bucket such as 50 to 100, or 100 to 200, and flexible pricing.

The issue may be from having more than one license. When you procure one license or two licenses, it becomes difficult.

It should be easier to procure a license, it should not be one by one. We don't know how many members I will have on my team three months from now.

We plan to continue using this solution.

I would recommend this solution, but I would not know their business needs.

Based on the various features, the deployments, licensing, pricing, and the customer experience, I would rate Microsoft Azure DevOps a seven out of ten.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the complete tool orchestration within the DevOps. It's great for operations, monitoring, and building tests for deployment.

I like the user interface. It's excellent.

The solution is easy to implement and easy to use.

We've been using their documentation seamlessly. It's been great.

I love it because we have Microsoft Exchange Office 365 and we have all those reports already in place (especially if you're using quality reporting). We get that as an add-on. It comes within the package, so everything is very compatible. The analytics on offer are also very good.

The solution offers great plugins and has great integration capabilities. It runs on configuration management tools like Ansible and Puppet. The monitoring they have for plugins is also excellent. 

Whatever you might need, they seem to have it.

We're quite happy with the tool right now. We're not really using it too much. We are also just starting on it, to be honest, so what we've needed so far we've found that it offers. There isn't anything missing that I can see. 

One thing I would note is that it's hard to know what is included or not in the product. Especially when you begin to try and compare it to other solutions. When you go to a site like VersionOne, they tell you Azure DevOps doesn't have this or that, and when you go to Microsoft, it says VersionOne doesn't have this or that. They could do a better job of laying out exactly what is on offer so customers know going in exactly what they'll get.

I've been using the solution for three years.

In terms of stability, I would say we have no problem with the solution. We have been using the tool for all of our projects and we have no problems with that aspect. If users use virtual missions when they run the testing, everything is even easier.

Scalability, at least for the time that we have been using the solution, hasn't been a problem. We are able to adjust and expand any time of VMs. Any organization that needs to grow its usage should be able to do so easily.

Currently, 40 people are using the solution for one of the projects we're running. We have whoever you could think of in an agile team on it. Everybody from the business analyst to the product managers, to the testers, to the developers, and even to business end-users are on it.

I'm not sure if our organization plans on expanding its usage in the future.

I've never personally had to contact technical support, and I haven't heard from anyone in my team about any negative results. I'm not sure if I'd be able to evaluate their services at this time.

We previously used Jira, however, we have not switched over completely to Azure DevOps. We now use both.

With manuals, the implementation is much easier. It is quite straightforward.

We are not doing any kind of maintenance on the solution. We don't need to because it's so fast. We are not paying for everything in terms of infrastructure development. 

I'm not sure about the pricing. It's not an aspect of the solution I currently deal with.

We're currently looking at VersionOne and CollabNet just to see how they compare to what we currently use, which includes Microsoft Azure DevOps.

I'm new to this company. I've been here only for a year. The previous company, I was using Agile Central, which I really liked because of the user interface. Central was previously called Rally. However, after coming to this company, as they have Jira, I've been using Jira and also, for this one project, Microsoft Azure DevOps. I need to begin considering what I should do at an enterprise level. I'm looking at a variety of options including Microsoft DevOps, VersionOne, CollabNet, and a few more. 

Since we have Microsoft Azure DevOps already in place, I would like something that's similar and competitive. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using at this time.

I personally just love using Microsoft DevOps. I would recommend the solution to anyone. Organizations considering the solution should just go for it and they should get the complete orchestration.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I don't think that I have explored everything extensively yet. Any product definitely will have its own gaps, and since I'm not in a position to understand it 100%, I want to play it safe on ranking it at eight.

I use the solution in my company to mostly build CI/CD pipelines.

The benefits from the use of the product in our company stem from the ease that the tool provides when working with different teams. The product is also helpful in assigning tasks to team members easily. Following step-by-step processes, including testing and integration of the testing phase, all the other areas are easy with the use of the tool.

The product is easy to use. There are many options to choose from in the solution. Working with different teams in my company becomes easy when everything is integrated into Microsoft Azure DevOps.

The tutorials for building pipelines are an area that is a bit technical for a beginner. I would want the product to have some comments on the pipeline side to help beginners understand more about the solution.

I have been using Microsoft Azure DevOps for around 6 months.

It is a stable solution. I did not face any issues with the tool.

The product is scalable. That would already work with third-party platforms. In the future, I believe that the solution will be integrated with other platforms.

Around five to six people in my company use the product.

The product is deployed only at a single place in our company.

The product's initial setup phase was not complex, especially since the work items are mostly descriptive, making it an area that everywhere can use easily. The CI/CD part is a bit technical. One can get a hold of the CI/CD part over a period of time, so I don't think it is a difficult task.

Our company's team handled the product's rollout phase. The rollout phase was divided into parts. A single person did not carry out the rollout phase. I only took care of some of its parts. I cannot tell the exact time taken by our company to deal with the product's rollout phase.

My company utilizes Microsoft Azure DevOps for continuous integrations and deployments of CI/CD workflow since my company uses IaC. My company uses pipelines for continuous integrations. Moreover, one of the teams in my company uses the tools available in Microsoft Azure DevOps and various work items in it to integrate into the project.

My company utilizes Microsoft Azure DevOps for project management and collaboration across the software development lifecycle with the help of work items, like Azure Boards, which is a necessary part of team management. The task assigned to our company's team members is integrated into Azure Boards.

The feature of Azure Repos I find to be the most effective for source control management stems from the fact that it is integrated with third-party platforms, like Jenkins and GitHub, making it an option that is very usable in our company's environment.

I won't be able to comment on the product's reporting part. Our company's project manager takes care of the product's reporting part. To date, I have had no concerns with the project visibility area in the product. Working with Microsoft Azure DevOps is great because it provides top-notch integration capabilities.

Microsoft Azure DevOps has improved the productivity and efficiency of my company's development team. In the past, when my company wasn't using the portal in Microsoft Azure DevOps, there used to be no continuous integrations. After my company started to use Microsoft Azure DevOps, we got to know about the CI/CD pipelines. Now, it is easy for us to make changes in the code, and simultaneously, the code starts working at the production end. My company majorly uses the solution for CI/CD pipelines.

Speaking about the integration part, I would say that my company mostly works with Terraform as it is a scripting language. Along with Microsoft Azure DevOps, my company has only worked with Terraform for now. Though my company works with other platforms, like GitHub, we haven't done projects with GitHub. Working with TerraForm and Microsoft Azure DevOps has been great.

The tool's maintenance part is great. I did not face any issues during maintenance.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I suggest others watch some online tutorials before purchasing the product, as it can help them get the basic information related to the solution, making it easier for them to use it.

I rate the overall tool a nine to nine and a half out of ten.

With Azure DevOps, I plan and track my project using Azure Boards, manage my code with Azure Repos, and automate build, test, and deployment processes using Azure Pipelines. This streamlines my development workflow and ensures efficient collaboration and project management.

The most valuable feature in automating our build and release processes with Azure DevOps is the scheduling capability. At the end of each sprint, we schedule automatic releases to QA and development environments, ensuring our latest code gets deployed without manual intervention. Additionally, triggering pipelines upon code upload to the main repository adds significant value to our development workflow.

Azure DevOps could be improved with more security plugins, especially for SaaS scanning and vulnerability scans.

I have been working with Azure DevOps for two years.

I would rate the stability of Azure DevOps as a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Azure DevOps as a ten out of ten. At our company, it is used daily.

Technical support from Microsoft is very helpful, especially when I need assistance with tasks like migrating work items between Azure DevOps and other platforms. I would rate the support as a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is easy. Deployment typically takes around ten minutes at most. We have set up an automated process that recreates everything, so even if there is damage to the VM or target machine, we can quickly retrieve and redeploy everything ourselves.

We require about two DevOps engineers to maintain Azure DevOps for our company, which has around 400 users in total.

I would rate the costliness of Azure DevOps at a seven out of ten.

We ensure the security of our company's source code uploaded to Azure Repos by using a SonarQube Plugin and then automate its deployment to various environments like development and QA. Once approved by QA, we deploy to the production environment, passing through our firewall for protection. This streamlined process ensures efficient and secure CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps.

Azure Boards has significantly improved our project tracking and adjustability. It is a powerful tool where we can easily trace work items and monitor the progress of our projects.

Azure Boards is a powerful tool for tracing work items and project progress. It simplifies uploading and versioning of project assets and tools, enabling easy refreshes or benchmarks.

Overall, I would rate Azure DevOps as a nine out of ten. I would recommend it to others.

The main use of this solution are to combine software development and IT operations. Also, we use it for automation with version control and microservices. Automation is a core principle for achieving DevOps success and CI/CD is a critical component. 

The application of continuous delivery and DevOps to data analytics has been termed DataOps. DevOps focuses on the deployment of developed software, whether it is developed via Agile or other methodologies. ArchOps presents an extension for DevOps practice, starting from artifacts, instead of source code, for operational deployment.

This solution has offered lots of improvements. The most important improvement was to provide continuous delivery with high-quality software. It helps with version control with automation using CI/CD components. It also helps to develop software using the agile methodology. 

The ability of different disciplines (development, operations, and infosec) to achieve outcomes has been great. Increased focus on test automation and continuous integration methods are helpful. It helps release new features continuously into large-scale high-availability systems while maintaining a high-quality end-user experience.

The most valuable feature is automation with version control. 

DevOps initiatives can create cultural changes in companies by transforming the way operations, developers, and testers collaborate during the development and delivery processes. We can release new features continuously into large-scale high-availability systems while maintaining a high-quality end-user experience. 

Adopting DevOps will also help eliminate the old and monotonous way of agile activity among big IT teams like network, Storage Team, Linux/Unix, Windows, etc.

It’s commonly observed that you cannot just change a company’s culture on command. You can influence the culture, shift it, and while it can evolve over time, it’s nearly impossible to just instruct all employees to simply change the way they think and act about specific things. 

The culture of any organization starts at the top of the leadership hierarchy and trickles down throughout, filling every empty space. It is essential that you get buy-in from the top management down to everyone in the pipeline. 

In order to do this, all involved need to understand the advantages the shift is going to have on the organization and on the team members.

I've been using the solution for the last two years.

The scalability is very good.

We didn't use any solution before.

We also looked at AWS.

We produce multiple different software for different markets in different countries. It's really for everything you can possibly think of, from online games to financial systems, to payment gateways, to APIs, to service desks, back-office analysis tools, admin tools, et cetera. We use it for anything and everything really.

The solution is great due to the fact that it's kind of an entire ecosystem. I'd say the work items are probably the most valuable aspect.

The stability has been great.

The solution is scalable. 

The interface is very bad. It's an aspect that really needs to be worked on. It is going to probably get the developers to start abandoning work items.

Our initial setup was quite complex. 

The presence of Microsoft in the country is limited.

I've used the solution since it came on the upgraded from Team Foundation Server - about ten years. We've used it for a very long time. 

The stability has always been really good. There aren't bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.

We've found the scalability to be good. We have about 2,000 users on it right now. We haven't had any issues with scaling as needed. 

For us, the initial setup was extremely complex due to the multiple organizations we had on the go. We actually had to abandon our initial rollout and rethink the whole process though. 

I'm in compliance, and therefore cannot speak to what the maintenance process is like for the solution. 

We had a combination of both in-house and vendor help with the setup process. We've got enterprise agreements with Microsoft, so they always give us resources to assist with our deployments. We already had TFS deployed, so it was an upgrade, really.

I don't deal with licensing. I can't speak to how much the solution costs.

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I'd advise new users to plan very carefully the way that they would like to set up projects. The model that you choose is extremely important and you might have to do a lot of rework if you don't get it right the first time.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's Microsoft. It's backed by the mighty, mega Microsoft. You can't get fired for choosing the top product run by a top multinational company. The downside for us here is, in South Africa, there are only two points of presence. For the data, if it's fully hosted, we only have Capetown and Johannesburg. When it comes to back hall speeds for internet, it could be better if we had points of presence in all the major cities, however, I suppose it's too much investment for Microsoft to make.