Difference Between Azure Devops and Devops

DevOps is a set of practices that we follow to deploy code from development to production swiftly and smoothly. The term “DevOps” came into existence to describe the commonalities between Development and Operations. From creating the source code to deployment and monitoring in production, DevOps involves several different tools or “dots”.

A good DevOps Engineer connects all these dots to make the code deployment efficient. Some of the most common open-source tools include Git, GitHub, Maven, Nexus, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, etc. Let’s know about the difference between Azure DevOps and DevOps with the diagram, and architecture below.

What Is DevOps?

DevOps stands for Development and Operations. It is a collaborative and iterative approach to streamline the entire Software Development Life Cycle. It breaks down the silos between development and Operation teams through automation, and developing collaborations. It ensures Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery and facilitates faster, more reliable software releases. In common practice, the workflow of DevOps looks as below discussed.

What Is Azure DevOps?

Microsoft wanted to create a set of tools that would reduce the number of “dots” involved in DevOps. They combined the popular term “DevOps” and “Azure” to create “Azure DevOps”.  Azure provides its own set of tools to cover each of these dots, such as “Azure Repos” for source code management (instead of Github), “Azure Artifacts” for artifact management (instead of Nexus, JFrog), and “Azure Pipelines” for continuous integration and deployment (instead of Jenkins, Travis CI, CricleCI, etc).

These tools (Azure Repo, Pipeline, Artifact, Boards)  are collectively referred to as Azure DevOps and can be accessed through an account on dev.azure.com. Note that Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Ansible, Maven, etc are not part of the Azure DevOps tools. These are open-source tools and technologies which Azure DevOps can integrate with its existing set of tools.

What Is AWS DevOps?

The usage of DevOps methodologies and concepts inside the AWS Cloud Network is termed as AWS DevOps. The AWS DevOps automates and orchestrates the whole software development life cycle by utilizing a set of cloud services and technologies such as AWS Codepipeline, AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodeDeploy. This facilitates teams to build, test and deploy the applications seamlessly in the AWS cloud.

AWS encourages teams for provisioning and managing the infrastructure using code (IaaC) for bring greater consistency and scalability. AWS comes up with adoption of features such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practices for faster and reliable software releases.

Differences Between AWS DevOps And AWS DevOps

The following are the major differences between AWS DevOps And Azure DevOps:

Aspects	AWS DevOps	Azure DevOps
Cloud Provider	Amazon Web Services (AWS)	Microsoft Azure
Integrated Services	AWS provides the set of DevOps services such as AWS Codepipeline, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy etc..	Azure provides Azure pipelines, Azure Boards, Azure Replos and other additional services.
Ecosystem Integration	AWS provides integration with other AWS services for complete end-to-end DevOps workflow.	Azure provides integration with other Azure services creating efficient environment for application development and deployment.
Pricing Models	AWS bills the users based on their utilization of resources following pay-as-you-go model.	Azure also follows same principle pay-as-you-go model but the pricing of the services are different.
Felxibility And Scalability	AWS facilitates high level of flexibility and scalability supporting a wide range of development and deployment scenarios.	Azure provides effective integrated solutions for the organizations in enterprise level. It offers the scalability and flexibility especially for .NET applications.
Tool Ecosystem	AWS facilitates a board partner ecosystem with supporting integration with popular DevOps tools.	Azure DevOps offers a effective set of tools and services for tight integration into the Azure Platform.

The effectiveness of each platform depends on the requirements of the organizations, the preferences of the development and operations teams all influence on how effective certain platform works. Effective way of implementing devops concepts into practice by supporting continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment processes offered by both AWS DevOps and Azure DevOps.

Differences Between Azure Devops And Devops

The following are the major differences between Azure DevOps And DevOps on comparing major criterias.

Criteria	Azure DevOps	DevOps
Definition	Microsoft’s set of tools to reduce the number of “dots” involved in DevOps.	A set of practices to deploy code from development to production in a swift and smooth manner.
Tools used	Azure Repos, Azure Artifacts, Azure Pipelines, Azure Boards.	Git, GitHub, Maven, Nexus, Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, etc.
Integration	Closely integrated with Azure cloud	No limitations on integration with any cloud service
Agent machines	Microsoft-hosted agent machine provided by Azure for builds	Need to create an agent machine on your own
Configuration	Ready-made YAML templates provided by Azure DevOps	Pipeline script needs to be written from scratch
Learning curve	Less compared to DevOps	More compared to Azure DevOps
Infrastructure	More aligned to Azure infra	No limitations on the infrastructure used

Workflow Of DevOps With Opensource Tools

The Developers team develops the code and it is maintained in a Source Code Management tool like Github -> The locally developed code of each developer is pushed to “Github” on committing with Git -> An artifact or executable is made from the code after it is built and tested using “Maven” -> It is uploaded to an Artifact repository like “Nexus” after the the applications is successfully tested and working fine then It is made as containerized application image using Docker tool.

Then it will be deployed to a Kubernetes cluster either in on premises or on “AWS” machine, etc to make the deployment faster, you may also use an Infrastructure management tool like “Terraform” or configuration management tool like “Ansible” -> the whole process of picking up the source code, building the same, deploying to production may be done via a Continuous Integration tool like “Jenkins“. These are a few of the most common open-source DevOps tools used in Software Devlopment Life Cycle. There are a lot more way of practicing cloud culture on going through Cloud platforms depends on your business requirement.

Advantages Of Azure DevOps Workflow

Azure DevOps workflow provides several advantages for software development and delivery process. The following a few popular advantages:

• Azure Repos Integration: Azure CI/CD workflow starts with source code files in Azure Repos. Azure Pipelines facilitates with seamless integrates with Azure Repos by automating build and release processes triggered by code changes or pull requests.
• Multi-Stage Pipelines: Azure Pipelines supports in creating multi-stage pipelines. It allows for the definition of various stages such as build, test, and deployment. This approach ensures a systematic progression of code changes through different testing phases before re aching production, enhancing code quality.
• Azure Artifacts for Package Management: Azure Artifacts acts as a package management solution by facilitating the secure storage and sharing of packages. Azure Pipelines integrates smoothly with Azure Artifacts, enabling the publication and consumption of packages during both the build and release processes, simplifying dependency management.
• Azure DevOps Services Integration: Azure CI/CD often involves collaboration with other Azure DevOps services such as Azure Boards for work tracking and Azure Test Plans for test management. Integration with these services provides a comprehensive platform for planning, tracking, testing, and releasing software, ensuring end-to-end visibility and streamlined collaboration throughout the development lifecycle.

Advantages Of AWS DevOps Workflow

AWS DevOps workflow offers several advantages for enhancing software development and delivery process. The following a few popular advantages:

• Scalability And Flexibility: AWS provides a high scalable and flexible cloud infrastructure that allows devops teams to scale the resources effortlessly up or down in response to the demand. It brings the easier management of workloads as an effective practice with optimized performance and cost-effectiveness.
• Integrated Services For End To End Automation: AWS DevOps optimizes the whole development lifecycle by utilizing a series of integrated services such as AWS Codepipeline, AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodeDeploy. It provides end-to-end automation of testing, continuous integration and code deployment resulting quicker and reliable delivery of software.
• Infrastructure As A Code: AWS DevOps encourages the usage of Infrastructure as a code for managing and provisioning infrastructure resources. This methodology improves the infrastructure efficiency, reusability and version control the manual error rates.
• Rich Ecosystem And Third Party Integrations: AWS DevOps comes with rich and diverse set of tools and services. It enhances the marketing and integration with third party tools seamlessly. Its flexibility strengthens the teams in coming up with best fit solutions for the specific requirements. It enhances the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the DevOps workflow.

Key Elements Of DevOps

By now you would have understood that Azure DevOps reduces your burden with the configuration of tools involved in the CI/CD process, but at the same time would give the maximum benefits only when the cloud infrastructure in Azure usage. The Open Source or regular DevOps, although has an initial configuration burden, comes with zero limitation on the integration part. The learning curve in normal DevOps is more. Note that AWS also has its suite of similar DevOps tools and it is referred to as AWS DevOps. Some of the key terminologies of DevOps are discussed below:

DevOps CI/CD Tools And Services

The following are the DevOps CI/CD tools and services:

• Continuous Integration ( CI ): The process of frequent merging of code changes in a shared repository followed by automated build and tests ensuring the integration issues resolvement.
• Continuous Deployment ( CD ): Continuous Deployment automates the deployment process of uploading application to production after successful passing through CI test cases.
• Infrastructure As Code (IaC): It helps in managing and provisioning of instructure through machine readable script files enhancing consistency and reproducibility.
• Containerization: Containerization involves in encapsulating an application with its dependencies in a lightweight, portable container, ensuring consistency across different environments.
• Orchestration: Orchestration supporting in management and coordination of multiple containers deployment for effective and scalable application’s architecture.

AWS DevOps CI/CD Services

The following are the AWS DevOps CI/CD services:

• AWS CodePipeline: AWS Codepipeline provides CI / CD services by automating Build, Test, Deployment stages effectively.
• AWS CodeBuild: It is a fully managed service for building and then compiling source code, runs tests producing ready-to-deploy software artifacts.
• AWS CodeDeploy: It simply automates code deployments to Amazon EC2 instances or on-premises instances, or serverless Lambda functions.
• AWS CloudFormation: AWS CloudFormation facilitates in safely and reliably defining and provisioning AWS infrastructure as code.
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk: AWS Elastic Beanstalk It is a fully AWS managed service used for simplifying the installation and executing apps across several languages.

Azure DevOps CI/CD Services

The following are the Azure DevOps CI/CD services:

• Azure Repos: Azure Repos in managing your code repositories offering version control services.
• Azure Pipelines: It is a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) providing platform that automates the build, test, and deployment stages of your release process.
• Azure Boards: It provides an work tracking on using configurable reporting, backlogs, and kanban boards for task management.
• Azure Artifacts: It is a package management services that make it easier to create, host and share packages.
• Azure DevTest Labs: It helps you in quickly creating environments in Azure on minimizing waste and reducing reducing expensives.

Scope Of Cloud Platforms In DevOps WorkFlow

Now that is a hard question to answer. The final choice boils down to your underlying infrastructure. If you have Azure in your infrastructure, then go for Azure DevOps. With AWS, the majority of the time you end up going with the normal DevOps. Azure DevOps makes your CI/CD implementation easier but with integration more aligned to your Azure Infra. Both are equally efficient and there is no expertise difference between the engineers who work on either of the technology.

So the next time you hear DevOps, Azure DevOps, and AWS DevOps, understand that they are all part of the same story. They all help you with faster code deployment using different tools, although the way they do it may differ slightly. And finally, in a nutshell, let’s assume there is 8-10 popular tools/technology in DevOps. Here, Azure came up with a suite to replace 3-4 tools with “Azure DevOps” to make the job a bit easier. However, the underlying CI/CD process remains the same and they are all part of “DevOps”.

Best Practices Of CI/CD Workflow

The following are the best practices of CI/CD Workflow:

• Automated Testing: Implement comprehensive automated testing at different stages of the CI/CD workflow to catch bugs early, ensuring code quality and reliability.
• Version Control: Utilize a robust version control system like Git to manage and track changes systematically, allowing for easy collaboration and rollbacks when needed.
• Continuous Monitoring: Implement continuous monitoring and logging to track the performance and health of applications in real-time, facilitating rapid detection and resolution of issues.
• Artifact Management: Employ artifact repositories to store and version artifacts generated during the CI/CD process, ensuring consistent and reproducible builds across different environments.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Embrace Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices to define and manage infrastructure through code, enhancing consistency, scalability, and traceability in deployments.

Learn DevOps from industry experts to enhance your workflow efficiency and master the rapid release of high-quality software. Checkout: DevOps Engineering – Planning to Production

Conclusion

In conclusion, software development and deployment process can be more agaily and efficient through the both AWS DevOps and Azure DevOps workflows. AWS DevOps make use of reliable cloud architecture facilitating with flexibility and scalability with vast set of effective integrated services. On the other hand Azure DevOps helps in the simplifying the DevOps process with extensive collection of tools facilitating smooth integration inside the environment excelling for Azure centric applications. The decision of going to the platforms is based on your infrastructure preferences.

AWS DevOps And Azure DevOps – FAQ’s

Is Azure DevOps Is Better Than AWS?

The decision between AWS and Azure DevOps is based on particular needs. Because of Azure services comes with tight integration, Azure devops provides a smooth experience inside the Microsoft ecosystem. On contrary, AWS provides a wider choice of services. The better choice is determined by the infrastructure and preferences of inside the company.

Which Is Better For Career Azure Or AWS?

Both the Azure and AWS offers promising career opportunities. The choice depends on the individual or organization preferences and trends. Acquiring proficiency in either platforms can lead to successful career in cloud computing.

Which Cloud Is Best For DevOps?

Azure and AWS are both suitable for praticing DevOps methodologies. Based on specific project needs, tool preferences, and the current state of the infrastructure in place all influence the decision of choosing cloud. DevOps professionals should be adaptable to work with various cloud platforms.

Is Azure DevOps In Demand?

Yes, Azure DevOps is in demand as more organizations are practicing DevOps techniques to create and distribute software efficiently. In the present IT market, Azure DevOps skills are highly valued, particularly that related to release management, continuous integration, and source code management.

Does AWS Have An Equivalent To Azure DevOps?

Yes, AWS Offers a collection of DevOps services like AWS CodePipeline, AWS Codebuild and AWS CodeDeploy. The AWS provides similar functionalities to Azure DevOps such as continuous Integration and continuous delivery but they differ in tools and services.