Learn CI/CD YAML pipelines with Azure DevOps

Learn the fundamentals of CI/CD pipeline, get started with CI/CD pipeline with this complete beginner’s course.
⏱️ Length: 4.9 total hours
⭐ 4.34/5 rating
👥 14,941 students
🔄 May 2023 update

Add-On Information:

Get Instant Notification of New Courses on our Telegram channel.

Note➛ Make sure your 𝐔𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐲 cart has only this course you're going to enroll it now, Remove all other courses from the 𝐔𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐲 cart before Enrolling!

Course Overview
- Strategic Skill Acquisition: Embark on a journey to master the critical skills of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), essential for modern software development teams striving for efficiency and rapid innovation. This course focuses on practical application, moving beyond theoretical concepts.
- YAML-Driven Automation: Delve deep into defining sophisticated CI/CD pipelines using YAML, a declarative and human-readable language. Learn how to script your entire build, test, and deployment process as code, enabling version control, collaboration, and consistency across environments.
- Azure DevOps Ecosystem: Gain comprehensive proficiency with Azure DevOps, Microsoft’s leading cloud-based platform for end-to-end software delivery. Understand how Azure Pipelines seamlessly integrates with other Azure DevOps services like Azure Repos, facilitating a unified development workflow.
- Transformative Workflow Adoption: Transition from traditional, manual deployment approaches to a fully automated and reliable release process. Discover how automation not only reduces human error but also significantly accelerates the delivery of high-quality software to end-users.
- Bridging Development & Operations: Explore the practical application of DevOps principles through the lens of CI/CD. Understand how these automated pipelines foster greater collaboration between development and operations teams, breaking down silos and improving overall project synergy.
- Hands-On Project Focus: This course emphasizes a hands-on learning experience, guiding you through the creation of tangible CI/CD pipelines for real-world scenarios. You will build and configure pipelines from scratch, solidifying your understanding with practical implementations.
- Accelerated Feedback Loops: Discover how continuous integration ensures that code changes are frequently merged and validated, providing immediate feedback on potential issues. Learn to configure triggers that automatically initiate builds and tests upon every code commit.
- Path to Professional Automation: Equip yourself with the foundational knowledge and practical experience to confidently implement and manage CI/CD pipelines in a professional setting, making you a valuable asset in any tech-driven organization.
Requirements / Prerequisites
- Basic Programming Acumen: A foundational understanding of any common programming language (e.g., C#, Python, JavaScript) will be beneficial, primarily to grasp the context of building and deploying applications, though no advanced coding is required.
- Version Control Fundamentals: Familiarity with basic version control concepts, particularly Git (e.g., committing, pushing, pulling code), is highly recommended, as CI/CD pipelines are inherently linked to source code repositories.
- Internet Connectivity: Reliable internet access is essential to interact with the Azure DevOps cloud platform and access course materials effectively.
- Web Browser: A modern web browser is needed to navigate the Azure DevOps portal and engage with the course content.
- Free Azure DevOps Account: You will need to create a free Azure DevOps organization. The course assumes you have access to an environment where you can create and manage pipelines.
- Curiosity and Eagerness to Learn: A strong desire to understand and implement automated software delivery processes will be your greatest asset in this course.
Skills Covered / Tools Used
- YAML Pipeline Authoring: Master the precise syntax and structure of YAML to define sophisticated, multi-stage CI/CD pipelines, including jobs, tasks, steps, and conditions, all as version-controlled code.
- Azure Pipelines Services: Navigate and utilize the core features of Azure Pipelines within the Azure DevOps portal for creating, monitoring, and managing your automated workflows.
- Git Repository Integration: Learn to seamlessly connect your Azure Pipelines with various Git repositories, including Azure Repos and GitHub, setting up triggers for automated pipeline execution on code changes.
- Build Task Configuration: Implement a wide array of build tasks, from compiling source code for various languages (e.g., .NET, Node.js) to running unit tests and packaging application artifacts.
- Deployment Strategy Implementation: Design and execute multi-stage deployment pipelines to consistently deliver applications to different environments (e.g., development, testing, production) using various deployment targets.
- Azure DevOps Task Library: Explore and leverage the extensive library of built-in and marketplace tasks to extend pipeline functionality, covering a broad spectrum of CI/CD requirements.
- Pipeline Variables and Parameters: Utilize pipeline variables for managing secrets and configuration values securely, and implement parameters for making pipelines flexible and reusable across different scenarios.
- Agent Pool Management: Understand the role of pipeline agents (Microsoft-hosted vs. self-hosted) in executing your pipeline jobs, and learn how to select and configure them for specific needs.
- Service Connections Setup: Configure secure service connections within Azure DevOps to interact with external cloud services like Azure subscriptions, facilitating automated deployments to Azure resources.
- Artifact Generation and Consumption: Learn to publish build artifacts (e.g., compiled code, deployment packages) from your CI stage and subsequently consume them in your CD stage for reliable deployments.
- Automated Trigger Configuration: Set up various types of triggers, including continuous integration triggers for code commits, scheduled triggers, and manual triggers, to control when your pipelines run.
- Conditional Execution Logic: Implement conditional expressions for steps, jobs, and stages to create intelligent pipelines that execute specific actions based on predefined criteria or previous task outcomes.
- Pipeline Monitoring & Troubleshooting: Acquire the skills to monitor pipeline runs, interpret logs, and effectively troubleshoot common pipeline failures, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted delivery.
Benefits / Outcomes
- Expedited Software Releases: Significantly reduce the time it takes to deliver new features, updates, and bug fixes to your users, enhancing responsiveness to market demands.
- Elevated Code Quality & Stability: Automate testing throughout the development lifecycle to catch defects early, ensuring a higher quality and more stable codebase with fewer post-release issues.
- Consistent & Reliable Deployments: Achieve repeatable and predictable deployments across all environments, eliminating the “works on my machine” syndrome and ensuring environmental parity.
- Improved Team Collaboration: Foster a more collaborative environment by automating repetitive tasks, allowing teams to focus on innovation and problem-solving rather than manual deployment chores.
- Enhanced Career Opportunities: Acquire in-demand skills in CI/CD and Azure DevOps, making you a highly sought-after professional in the rapidly evolving landscape of software development and operations.
- Reduced Manual Overhead: Eliminate the burden of manual, error-prone deployment processes, freeing up valuable developer and operations time for more strategic initiatives.
- Real-World Portfolio Development: Gain practical experience by building fully functional pipelines, providing tangible examples for your professional portfolio to showcase your automation capabilities.
- Proactive Problem Solving: Develop the ability to quickly identify and resolve pipeline issues, minimizing downtime and maintaining a continuous flow of software delivery.
- Scalable Automation Solutions: Learn to design robust pipelines that can adapt and scale with the growing complexity and requirements of your projects and teams.
- Confident Release Management: Cultivate the confidence to manage and orchestrate software releases seamlessly, from development to production, with full visibility and control.
- Faster Feedback Loops: Integrate rapid feedback into your development process, allowing teams to iterate quickly and correct course much earlier in the development cycle.
- Infrastructure as Code Principles: Gain an understanding of how defining pipelines in YAML aligns with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, extending version control to your deployment logic.
PROS
- Ideal for Beginners: Specifically structured as a complete beginners’ course, it breaks down complex CI/CD concepts into manageable, easy-to-understand segments, making it highly accessible.
- Content Freshness Assured: Updated in May 2023, the course guarantees that you are learning with the most current features, interfaces, and best practices within Azure DevOps, ensuring relevance.
- Proven Student Satisfaction: A robust rating of 4.34/5 from nearly 15,000 students speaks volumes about the course’s quality, effectiveness, and positive learning experience for a wide audience.
- Efficient Learning Curve: With a total duration of just 4.9 hours, the course is designed to deliver maximum value and practical skills in a concise timeframe, ideal for busy learners.
- Strong Practical Emphasis: The course’s core strength lies in its step-by-step approach to creating a fully automated CI/CD pipeline, reinforcing theoretical knowledge with invaluable hands-on application.
- Clear Learning Path: Provides a straightforward and logical progression through CI/CD fundamentals and Azure DevOps pipeline creation, making it easy to follow even for newcomers.
CONS
- Limited Advanced Depth: As a foundational beginners’ course, it may not explore highly intricate, enterprise-scale CI/CD patterns, advanced security configurations, or highly specialized deployment scenarios that more experienced practitioners might seek.