Microsoft has released Release Candidate 1 of its new Azure DevOps Server 2019 platform for customers who have special requirements for running Azure DevOps as a self-hosted platform.
The new server version is aimed at customers who want to run Azure DevOps on-premises, for users who require a guaranteed isolated instance of Azure DevOps and for users who want to run it in regions where a hosted version of Azure DevOps is not available, wrote Jamie Cool, director of program management for Azure DevOps, in a recent post on the Azure Blog.
This first Release Candidate (RC1) of Azure DevOps Server 2019 delivers the codebase of Microsoft Azure DevOps while being optimized for customers who prefer to self-host the application, he explained.
Azure DevOps Server 2019 uses the latest interface that’s now found in Azure DevOps, along with a wide range of new features, including improved navigation, support for the Azure SQL database, a new work items hub and release management improvements.
The support for Azure SQL for Azure DevOps Server 2019 is in addition to the existing support for SQL Server that was in the original Azure DevOps platform, wrote Cool. “This enables enterprises to self-host Azure DevOps in their own datacenter using an on-premises SQL Server. Customers now also have the option to self-host Azure DevOps in the cloud and take advantage of all the fantastic Azure SQL capabilities and performance.”
This release of Azure DevOps Server 2019 will give customers the choice of installing it on-premises, self-hosting it in the cloud or running it on a hosted service in the cloud.
The release management improvements in Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1 are designed to make it easier for users to see how their deployment is operating, with built-in traceability that allows users to understand which bits are deployed to which environments and why, wrote Cool.
“You can also mix and match agents self-hosted on-premises and in any cloud on Windows, Mac or Linux,” he wrote. “You can easily deploy to IaaS or PaaS in Azure as well as on-premises infrastructure.”
The new work items hub was created to serve as the home of all work items being configured within the platform, wrote Cool. “Here, you have many different list views of your work items that are scoped down for you. You can view ‘Assigned to me’ to quickly get a glance at all the work that is assigned to you or ‘Recently updated’ which shows you all of the work items in your project that have been most recently updated.”
The redesigned, new user interface will appear in all updates of Azure DevOps for self-hosted customers, so users are being cautioned that updates will also likely be required for internal documentation and training, wrote Cool. “Therefore, you should plan accordingly because once you do the upgrade all your Azure DevOps Server users will see the new UI. Previous versions of Team Foundation Server will stay on the old user interface.”
The Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1 is now available for download. More information is also available from Microsoft for server requirements and compatibility.