Benefits of Git tagging in DevOps Release

In this article, we will be trying to understand the uses and benefits of tagging with your repository. How it helps you with your release management cycle and hot fixes in real time projects.There are few benefits as highlighted below:

• A tag is immutable.

• Tags are branches without branches anyway, just adding a way to reference a specific version of the project to reduce complexity.

• Use of tags for release versioning is better than using branches commits.

• You can easily compare the changes between the releases.With Tags you can keep track release versions with every project release cycle.

• Tags are mainly used for future reference to the specific version of the project, by tagging a commit.

• With every project releases we should provide an additional piece of documentation that can be extremely helpful in certain cases. With Tags you can add these documentation easily that can be useful for your team-members and clients.

• Tags are easy to refer while discussion of any release bugs/ defects with your team members.

• Tags also helps to easy rollback changes to last stable release in case of something breaks with the new release deployments.

• With tags it is easy to investigate/replicate in local when defects are hard to identify.

• In some of retail companies which sells their product online might release/deploy with high frequency.

Now Let's understand the different types of branches which we normally use in our project developments. Each of these branches is having a specific purpose. Based on the situation these branches behaves as an originating or merge targets branch.

In my next article, I will show you how these branches can be useful for your git release in DevOps environments. 

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Five pillars of Azure DevOps

In this article I will discuss about the five pillars(components) of Azure DevOps. These pillars actually helps to build and manage development life-cycle. 
Development life-cycle consists of : 

• Requirement gathering, 
• Work plan, 
• Code management, 
• CI/CD.
• Test plans

These components helps key stakeholders proper real time insights of the projects.

Azure Boards

Plan, track, and discuss work across teams, deliver value to your users faster. Boards is used for agile project planning. It is a management tool that provides you the ability to link repos, work items, tasks and sub-tasks. With Azure Boards you can track backlogs and customize dashboards and create custom reporting. It easily helps to monitor progress throughout the lifecycle of your project. Moreover you can integrate boards with tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack to sync up with members.

Azure Repos

Unlimited cloud-hosted private Git repos. Collaborative pull requests, advanced file management, and more.

Azure Repos functionality differs between choosing your Git or Team Foundation Source Control. The most common choice is Git. Git is there with the added benefit of linking commits and pull requests to Work Items and CI. you can customise your branch policies to maintain your team’s high standards. It provides you to protect your code quality with branch policies. you can add code reviewer signoff to keep code quality high.

Azure Pipelines

CI/CD that works with any language, platform, and cloud. Connect to GitHub or any Git provider and deploy continuously to any cloud. It allows the building, testing and deployment of code using DevOps practices.

Azure Test Plans

The test management and exploratory testing toolkit that lets you ship with confidence. 

Azure Artifacts

Create, host, and share packages. Easily add artifacts to CI/CD pipeline. You can share code effortlessly by storing Maven, npm, NuGet and Python packages together and add artifacts to your CI/CD pipelines with a single click.

Azure Overview  gives you real time insights of the project.

Happy Learning :)

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