Learning Azure DevOps, Second Edition

Build once. Ship it always.

The whole point of Azure is that every team should be able to ship code confidently, automatically secure it and scale up without any hassle. And this hands-on second edition on Azure DevOps teaches you to build a production-grade multi-stage pipeline from scratch using a single evolving Spring Boot REST API.

Each chapter adds a new capability, like YAML pipeline authoring, infrastructure provisioning with Bicep and Terraform, zero-downtime blue-green deployments, package management with Azure Artifacts, automated API contract testing with Newman, shift-left security with GitHub Advanced Security, and AI-assisted development with GitHub Copilot Agent Mode. It's all very practical. Every concept is shown using tried-and-tested code, real pipeline stages and real Azure resources.

Whether you're an Azure developer looking to automate your first pipeline, or a DevOps engineer modernising a legacy release process, or a team lead building a security-conscious delivery culture, this book has got you covered. This book has covered DORA metrics, DevSecOps lifecycle controls, Azure DevOps MCP Server integration, and responsible AI governance, which are the things that modern cloud teams need the most.

Key Learnings

Build multi-stage Azure Pipelines YAML with reusable templates and approval gates.

Provision Azure infrastructure idempotently using Bicep and Terraform in CI pipelines.

Execute zero-downtime production deployments using App Service blue-green slot swaps.

Manage Maven, npm, and PyPI packages through private Azure Artifacts upstream feeds.

Shift security left using SonarLint, detect-secrets, CodeQL, and dependency scanning.

Automate API contract validation using Postman collections and Newman in pipelines.

Measure and improve engineering performance using the four DORA delivery metrics.

Control feature rollout safely without redeployment using Azure App Configuration flags.

Orchestrate AI-assisted DevOps tasks using GitHub Copilot Agent Mode and MCP Server.

Apply DevSecOps across all seven lifecycle stages from planning through runtime monitoring.

Table of Content

1. Getting Started with Azure DevOps
2. Pipeline as Code with YAML
3. Continuous Integration with Azure Pipelines
4. Continuous Delivery with Azure Pipelines
5. Managing Dependencies with Azure Artifacts
6. QA Testing with Azure Test Plans
7. Infrastructure Automation with Azure Pipelines
8. Collaboration and Team Management in Azure DevOps
9. Implementing DevSecOps
10. AI-Assisted DevOps with GitHub Copilot and Azure