Azure DevOps End of Life Alternatives and Options

If you're facing the end of life for Azure DevOps, don't worry, there are plenty of alternatives and options available. Azure DevOps will be replaced by Azure DevOps Server, which will be a self-hosted version of the service.

Many organizations are looking for alternatives to Azure DevOps, and some popular options include GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. These platforms offer similar features to Azure DevOps, such as version control, project management, and continuous integration and delivery.

GitHub, for example, has become a popular choice for developers and teams, with over 40 million users worldwide. It offers a free plan, as well as paid plans with additional features.

DevOps is a culture of collaboration that brings together developers, project managers, and contributors for software development. It's all about working together to create products faster than traditional methods.

Azure DevOps is a great example of a DevOps platform that integrates features for software development, testing, and release management. It's designed to streamline development activities throughout the entire application lifecycle.

Here are some key capabilities of a DevOps platform like Azure DevOps:

Project management for Agile and waterfall teams.

Version control options using TFVC or Git.

Automated builds.

Reporting functionalities for test results and development metrics.

Testing and release management.

Azure DevOps is optimized for use with native development environments like Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse, but it can also work with other popular IDEs.

Azure DevOps has a range of alternatives, including Jira, which has evolved from a bug-tracking tool to a comprehensive ALM tool.

Jira is a popular alternative with similar features and capabilities, but Azure provides a more comprehensive experience with built-in reporting and analytics.

If you're looking for other alternatives, you might also consider Jenkins, TeamCity, Bamboo, CircleCI, and others, which offer varying degrees of functionality and integration.

Azure DevOps is starting the deprecation process for the macOS-12 Hosted Pipeline Image, also known as the Monterey image.

The deprecation will begin on October 7, which means you may experience longer queue times during peak usage hours.

Pipeline jobs using the macOS-12 image label should be updated to use macOS-12.1, macOS-13, or other available images.

To raise awareness of the upcoming removal, Azure DevOps will temporarily fail jobs using the macOS-12 image.

The brownouts are scheduled for specific dates and times, but the exact schedule is not specified in the article section.

Deprecation will be fully complete by December 3, at which point the macOS-12 image will be fully unsupported.

Azure Alternatives have emerged as viable options for developers and teams.

Jira is a popular alternative with similar features and capabilities that serves as an application life cycle management (ALM) tool after initially being developed as a bug-tracking tool.

Azure provides a more comprehensive experience that includes built-in reporting and analytics.

Jira has evolved into a more comprehensive tool that embodies several tools for software development and management.

Other alternatives include Jenkins, TeamCity, Bamboo, CircleCI, and many others.

Visual Studio has 4 versions that are still supported: Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio 2017, Visual Studio 2019, and Visual Studio 2022.

Microsoft follows a fixed lifecycle policy of 10 years for both Visual Studio and TFS. The first 5 years are mainstream support which includes feature updates, platform updates, security updates, and functionality fixes.

For the first 5 years, you can expect feature updates, platform updates, security updates, and functionality fixes. This is known as mainstream support.

The next 5 years of Extended support, offers only security updates. This means you'll still get critical security patches, but no new features or functionality.

There are also multiple editions of Visual Studio, including a free community edition, a professional edition, and an enterprise edition. Each edition has a slightly different feature set.

Only the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) versions are supported for longer periods, while the Current Channel only supports the most recent version.

Azure DevOps has a rich history that's worth exploring. Microsoft first released Team Foundation Services (TFS) in 2007, an on-premise versioning system.

Before Azure DevOps, Microsoft was late to the cloud game, and many developers were already using GitHub to share their software. GitHub launched in 2008 with a focus on open-source and a free model.

In 2012, Microsoft became a significant user of GitHub for their repositories, including .NET, MSBuild, Powershell, Visual Studio Code, and more. Other companies like Facebook and Google also had a strong presence on GitHub.

Here's a brief timeline of key events:

GitHub wasn't always owned by Microsoft, but rather was an independent product. It wasn't until June 2018 that Microsoft acquired GitHub.

Microsoft had been developing its own cloud product, Azure DevOps (formerly known as Team Foundation Server or TFS), as a competitor to GitHub. This was a response to the growing demand for tools that could accommodate the increasing complexity and interconnectivity of systems.

In 2007, Microsoft released Team Foundation Services, an on-premise versioning system. This was followed by GitHub launching its service in 2008 with a focus on open-source software and a free model.

By 2012, Microsoft had become a significant user of GitHub for its repositories, including .NET, MSBuild, Powershell, Visual Studio Code, and more. Other major companies like Facebook and Google were also using GitHub extensively.

Here's a brief timeline of key events:

DevOps vs DevOps Server is a crucial distinction to understand when it comes to Azure's offerings.

The main difference between DevOps Services and DevOps Server is the hosting, with DevOps Services being a cloud-based service and DevOps Server being an on-premises solution.

DevOps Services has several advantages over its on-premise counterpart, including simplified server management and immediate access to the latest features.

You'll also enjoy improved connectivity with remote sites and a transition from capital expenditures to operational expenditures with DevOps Services.

Microsoft highlights several areas where DevOps Services and DevOps Server differ, including scope and scale data, authentication, users and groups, manage user access, and security and data protection.

Here's a breakdown of these differences:

The Azure DevOps marketplace is surprisingly limited, with only 2241 extensions available as of November 2023. This includes both extensions to Azure DevOps itself and pipeline tasks.

Many of these extensions are outdated, with the majority not having been updated in the last two years. This lack of maintenance is a major concern for users who rely on these extensions.

The built-in tasks for Azure DevOps are also lacking, with a wide array of core tasks still in alpha, such as AzureAppServiceManage@0 and IISWebAppDeploymentOnMachineGroup@0. You can view all these tasks on the Azure DevOps website.

In contrast, GitHub Marketplace boasts an impressive 20,000 pipeline tasks, offering a much wider range of functionality, including login to cloud providers and deploy function applications. This highlights the significant difference in scope between the two marketplaces.