Shipping Software Faster with Azure DevOps

Class Duration

21 hours of live training delivered over 3-5 days to accommodate your scheduling needs

Student Prerequisites

Ability to read computer program code.
Command line experience with a terminal or command prompt.
Experience with a modern editor (ex. Visual Studio Code) or IDE (ex. Visual Studio or a JetBrains IDE).
Experience using cloud-based services such as Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
This course focuses on using Azure DevOps Services. Students write minimal code and all necessary programming code is provided.

Target Audience

Designed for software engineers, tech leads, SREs/DevOps engineers, QA leads, release managers, and solution/enterprise architects working in cloud, hybrid, or on-prem environments. It is especially valuable for teams standardizing on Microsoft tooling, organizations seeking tighter GitHub–Azure DevOps integration, and enterprises that need auditable pipelines, package governance, and full traceability from idea to production. Managers and L&D partners will gain clarity on how Azure DevOps accelerates delivery while improving quality, compliance, and visibility across products and programs.

Description

Modern software organizations win by delivering reliable features faster. This live, instructor-led Azure DevOps training shows teams how to plan, build, test, release, and operate with a single toolchain. You’ll map DevOps principles to Azure Boards, Repos, Pipelines, Test Plans, and Artifacts; stand up secure organizations and projects; integrate GitHub; and implement CI/CD with YAML, multi-stage releases, quality gates, and approvals. The course also covers infrastructure as code with ARM and Bicep, scripting with Azure CLI and PowerShell, and configuration management with DSC—so application and platform changes move together. Throughout, you’ll apply best practices for traceability, dashboards, and analytics to improve flow, reduce risk, and align engineering work to business outcomes.

Learning Outcomes

Explain DevOps principles and map them to Azure DevOps architecture, services vs. server, and extensibility options.
Provision organizations and projects; configure permissions, security, and team structures; integrate GitHub and external tools.
Model and track work in Azure Boards (epics, features, user stories); run Scrum/Kanban with WIP limits, Definition of Done, queries, charts, and dashboards.
Implement Git strategies in Azure Repos and GitHub Repos, including branching, pull requests, merge policies, code reviews, and large codebase navigation.
Author YAML pipelines to automate builds, tests, and quality checks; configure agents, service connections, approvals; deploy to Azure and on-prem environments.
Use Azure Test Plans for manual and exploratory testing, capture UAT feedback, integrate tests into pipelines, and track defects and coverage.
Publish and consume packages with Azure Artifacts and GitHub Packages; manage versions and supply-chain security; integrate packages into CI/CD.
Define infrastructure and configuration as code with ARM, Bicep, Azure CLI/PowerShell, and DSC; ensure end-to-end traceability and continuous improvement with analytics.

Training Materials

All students receive comprehensive courseware covering all topics in the course. Courseware is distributed via GitHub in the form of documentation and extensive code samples. Students practice the topics covered through challenging hands-on lab exercises.

Software Requirements

Students will need a free, personal GitHub account to access the courseware. Student will need permission to install the selected language platform (Node.js, .NET SDK, or Python) and Visual Studio Code on their computers. Also, students will need permission to install packages for the selected coding platform as well as Visual Studio Code Extensions.

Training Topics

DevOps and Azure DevOps

What is DevOps? Core principles and goals
Overview of Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server
End-to-End DevOps lifecycle with Microsoft tools
Azure DevOps architecture and extensibility

Provisioning and Environment Setup

Provisioning Azure DevOps Services vs. Azure DevOps Server
Creating organizations and projects
Permissions, security, and team structure
Integrating with GitHub and external tools

Azure Boards: Planning and Tracking Work

Creating and managing backlogs, epics, and user stories
Using Kanban and task boards effectively
Planning and managing sprints
Limiting WIP and establishing “Definition of Done”
Reporting with queries, charts, and dashboards

Azure Repos: Version Control with Git

Centralized vs. decentralized workflows
Creating, cloning, and branching repositories
Pull requests, merge policies, and code reviews
Using GitHub Repos and integrating with Azure Boards
Searching and navigating large codebases

Azure Pipelines: CI/CD and Automation

Setting up build pipelines using YAML
Automating tests, builds, and quality checks
Releasing applications with multi-stage pipelines
Working with agents, service connections, and approvals
Deploying to cloud and on-prem environments

Testing and Quality with Azure Test Plans

Manual testing and exploratory testing workflows
Creating test suites and test cases
Capturing feedback from UAT
Integrating testing into build/release pipelines
Tracking defects and test coverage

Artifact Management with Azure Artifacts

Publishing and sharing NuGet, npm, Maven, and Python packages
Integrating artifacts into build pipelines
Managing package versions and security
Using GitHub Packages as an alternative

Infrastructure and Configuration as Code

Creating Azure resources with ARM and Bicep
Using Azure CLI and PowerShell in pipelines
Managing infrastructure state with templates
Implementing Desired State Configuration (DSC)

Final Workflow and Best Practices

Full DevOps workflow from planning to release
Promoting DevOps culture across teams
Ensuring traceability across boards, repos, pipelines, and test plans
Using dashboards and analytics for continuous improvement