
Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/4XvAZN8_WHo

This weekend I'm doing a bit of a deep-dive research into the current state of features, capabilities, and limitations - in Azure DevOps Build Pipelines - and researching additional capabilities that are offered by plugins in the Azure DevOps section of the Visual Studio Marketplace.

My corresponding LinkedIn post.

Going forward, I'll continue gathering information on this topic in my Lab.Cloud.Azure github repository, in this file:
https://github.com/intltechventures/Lab.Cloud.Azure/blob/master/Pipelines.md

1.0 Azure DevOps Build Pipelines

1.1 References

1.2 Visual Studio Marketplace - Azure DevOps

- https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?target=AzureDevOps&category=Azure%20Pipelines&sortBy=Installs

- AWS Toolkit for Azure DevOps
+ https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-azure-devops
+ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vsts/latest/userguide/welcome.html
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AmazonWebServices.aws-vsts-tools
    * "Tasks for Amazon S3, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS Lambda and AWS CloudFormation and more, and running commands in the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell module and the AWS CLI."
    * "AWSCLI - Interact with the AWSCLI (Windows hosts only)"
    * "AWS Powershell Module - Interact with AWS through powershell (Windows hosts only)"
    * "Beanstalk - Deploy ElasticBeanstalk applications"
    * "CodeDeploy - Deploy with CodeDeploy"
    * "CloudFormation - Create/Delete/Update CloudFormation stacks"
    * "ECR - Push an image to an ECR repository"
    * "Lambda - Deploy from S3, .net core applications, or any other language that builds on Azure DevOps"
    * "S3 - Upload/Download to/from S3 buckets"
    * "Secrets Manager - Create and retrieve secrets"
    * "SQS - Send SQS messages"
    * "SNS - Send SNS messages"
    * "Systems manager - Get/set parameters and run commands"

- Publishing to Apple Store
+ https://github.com/microsoft/app-store-vsts-extension
    * "Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) extension for performing continuous delivery to the App Store store from your automated CI builds"
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vsclient.app-store
    * "Provides tasks for publishing to Apple's App Store from a TFS/Azure DevOps build or release pipeline"
    * "The tasks install and use fastlane tools. fastlane requires Ruby 2.0.0 or above and recommends having the latest Xcode command line tools installed on the MacOS computer."
+ https://github.com/fastlane/fastlane
    * "The easiest way to automate building and releasing your iOS and Android apps"

- AWS S3 Upload
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MFelling.AWSS3Upload

- File Utilities Build Tasks
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=richardfennellBM.BM-VSTS-FileCopier-Tasks

- Changed files
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=touchify.vsts-changed-files

- Download a file
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Fizcko.azure-devops-download-a-file

- File Operations
+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=KirKone.fileoperations

1.3 Azure DevOps Feature Requests - and possible workarounds

- Run task if file/directory exists #1877
+ https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-devops-docs/issues/1877
+ See pseudo code example suggested, using script task

- bash: |
   if [ -f your-file-here.txt ]; then
    echo "##vso[task.setVariable variable=FILEEXISTS]true"
   fi
- task: Foo@1
condition: eq(variables.FILEEXISTS, 'true')

- Add an exists() on Task Custom Condition
+ https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/idea/366095/add-an-exists-on-task-custom-condition.html

1.4 Third-Party Solutions

- WinScp
+ SFTP/FTPS file transfers in Microsoft Azure WebJob
    * Re: Azure WebJob
      * https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/webjobs-create
    * "Starts immediately when the WebJob is created."
+ https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_microsoft_azure_webjob_sftp

1.5 Training Resources

- https://azuredevopslabs.com/

1.6 For Comparison: Jenkins Pipeline Capabilities

- https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/getting-started/

- https://plugins.jenkins.io/
+ File System Trigger
    * https://github.com/jenkinsci/fstrigger-plugin
    * https://plugins.jenkins.io/fstrigger/
      * "The plug-in makes it possible to monitor changes of a file or a set of files in a folder."

- Pipeline Steps Reference
+ https://www.jenkins.io/doc/pipeline/steps/

1.7 Suggested Books

- Hands-on Azure Pipelines: Understanding Continuous Integration and Deployment in Azure DevOps 1st ed. Edition (July 2020)
+ https://www.amazon.com/Hands-Azure-Pipelines-Understanding-Integration/dp/1484259017/

- Agile Project Management with Azure DevOps: Concepts, Templates, and Metrics Paperback – (April 2019)
+ https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Project-Management-Azure-DevOps/dp/1484244826/

- Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions, Jeffrey D. Smith, Manning Publications (MEAP, est. Fall 2020)
+ https://www.manning.com/books/operations-anti-patterns-devops-solutions

- Effective DevOps at Scale, Jennifer Davis, Ryan Daniels, O'Reilly Publishing (2016)
+ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/effective-devops/
+ Note: 410 pages, *Free Book*

1.8 Articles of possible interest

2019

- How I Failed My Way to Success with Azure Pipelines
+ https://toastit.dev/2019/02/06/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines/
+ https://toastit.dev/2019/02/17/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines-part-2-release/

intltechventures.blogspot.com

2020-08-08

2020-08-08 Saturday - Researching: Azure DevOps Build Pipelines