Azure DevOps

What I like the most about this product is how it truly puts everything under one roof for our whole team. As an automation tester, its a huge relief to have our git repos right next to our sprint boards and test plans. I love that I can just click on a user story and see the exact code changes and the test cases that go with it without having to hunt through five different apps. It just makes our daily standups and sprint planning sessions so much easier and much faster because all the data we need is just there. The integration of different tools under Azure DevOps is a total game changer like, Git Repos, Test Plans, Pipelines, etc.,. I can just trigger a build and see the test results update our Test Suite in real time automatically is so satisfying. It really helps with traceability because if a bug pops up I can track it all the way back to the specific PBI or feature it came from. It just makes the whole process feel very organic and less like a bunch of separate tasks.

I greatly like the all in one nature of the platform greatly reduces context switching. Its especially helpful being able to move between repositories and their associated pipelines without having to switch to a different application or platform. The level of customization of the CI/CD pipelines is used heavily by my team and allows us to enforce security standards. The ability to integrate the customization with protected resources by enforcing the use of certain templates is also a major benefit for us. The platform has strong built in support for integrations through the API and webhooks. The ability to have the platform send a webhook on certain events has been especially useful.

The most valuable part of Azure DevOps is how seamlessly it supports both planning and delivery within our team. We make extensive use of the boards features, where engineers and managers plan sprint work, track progress, and maintain clear goals and tasks. It provides a structure that keeps everyone aligned and makes workload management more transparent. I've also started using Repos to build a CI/CD pipeline that automatically uploads our content to our Sentinel SIEM using a detection-as-code framework. The process integrates cleanly with Sentinel through YAML and PowerShell, and has significantly improved the consistency and reliability of how we deploy changes with a clear audit trail. Lastly, the Wiki functionality has been invaluable. It allows us to centralise and share knowledge across the team, ensuring documentation is easy to access, well-structured, and always up-to-date.

Sometimes it can get overwhelming and can get the interface cluttered when you are managing a large project. As someone who has to handle everything from sprint boards to test plans and repos, it feels like there are too many menu options and tabs to navigate through, sometimes you can get confused with the navigation as there are too many. I also hate how easy it is to lose track of PBIs and Tasks as the parent child relationships get so complex and messy overtime.

The platform's UI is often inconsistent and unintuitive. This can make it hard to navigate and use especially for users who don't interact with certain parts of the platform as often. As an administrator I often will need to walk developers through performing certain things on the platform because they are not in an obvious place. The platform's API also lacks documentation for certain endpoints and is missing certain desired capabilities.

Azure DevOps comes with a steep learning curve, especially for those who are new to DevOps practices or have limited experience with CI/CD tooling. It took me some time to fully understand how to structure repos, build working pipelines, and make the most of the platform's capabilities. Another challenge is the variation between how different teams configure their projects. Because each project can be set up uniquely, with different boards, processes, workflows, and conventions, it can be difficult to navigate or understand how teams track their work. This can sometimes cause confusion or missing items when collaborating across teams. While this isn't strictly a flaw in DevOps itself, it's a side effect of how flexible and feature-rich Azure DevOps is, which can make the overall experience clunky.