Beginner's Guide to Azure Pipelines: Authentication, Deployment, and Job Strategies

Authenticating Access to Azure Environments:

1. • Service Principal Authentication: This involves creating a service principal, which is a limited-permission identity used for automated tasks, similar to a "robot account."

     • Managed Identity: This is automatically managed by Azure, making it simpler to set up but less flexible.

       Setup:

       • Navigate to Project Settings in Azure DevOps.

       • Select Service Connections.

       • Create an Azure Resource Manager connection using Service Principal (automatic) for ease of setup.

Deploying Build Artifacts:

1. Use built-in tasks in your pipeline to manage artifacts:

   • DownloadPipelineArtifact@2: This task downloads the build artifact (e.g., a .zip file) to the pipeline agent.

   • AzureWebApp@1: This task deploys the artifact to Azure App Service. It requires:

     • • azureSubscription: The name of the service connection.

         • appName: The name of your App Service (e.g., $(WebAppName)).

         • package: The path to the artifact (e.g., $(Pipeline.Workspace)/drop/*.zip).

If you need further clarification or additional details, feel free to ask!

Example YAML snippet:

steps:
- download: current
  artifact: drop
- task: AzureWebApp@1
  inputs:
    azureSubscription: 'My-Service-Connection'
    appName: '$(WebAppName)'
    package: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/drop/**/*.zip'

3. Jobs and Strategies

• Jobs: A series of tasks that run sequentially.

• Default in every stage.

• Can run on agents (e.g., ubuntu-latest), containers, or the Azure DevOps server.

• Deployment Jobs: Special jobs that track deployment history and define strategies.

• Strategies: Define how your app rolls out:

• runOnce: Simplest (deploys once).

• Blue-Green/Canary: Advanced (zero-downtime/gradual rollouts).

Example YAML:

jobs:
- deployment: Deploy
  pool: 
    vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
  environment: dev
  strategy:
    runOnce:
      deploy:
        steps: [download, AzureWebApp@1]

yaml

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4. How Azure Pipelines Connects to Azure

• The service connection uses service principal authentication by default.

• It auto-discovers Azure resources and assigns minimal required permissions.

Check Your Knowledge

1. Fastest way to deploy for team feedback?

✅ CI/CD Pipeline (Automates and secures the process).

1. Resources needed to deploy to App Service?

✅ Build artifact + Service Connection.

1. Relationship among tasks, stages, jobs?

✅ Stages → Jobs → Tasks (Stages contain jobs, which contain tasks).

Next Steps

• Start with a runOnce strategy.

• Explore environments for dev/staging/prod separation.

• Try adding approvals for production deployments.

For issues, use #azure-training on [Microsoft Q&A](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags

/azure-training).

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Why This Answer Works

• Accuracy: Combines correct details from all responses (e.g., service principal auth, YAML structure

).

• Clarity: Uses analogies (e.g., "robot account") and avoids jargon.

• Actionable: Includes direct steps (e.g., service connection setup) and a quiz.

• Flow: Logically ordered from authentication → deployment → advanced concepts.

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