Describe Azure DevOps release pipeline capabilities

Completed 100 XP

Azure DevOps has extended support for pipelines as code (also called YAML pipelines) for continuous deployment and started introducing various release management capabilities into pipelines as code.

The existing UI-based release management solution in Azure DevOps is referred to as classic release.

You'll find a list of capabilities and availability in YAML pipelines vs. classic build and release pipelines in the following table.

Feature YAML Classic Build Classic Release Notes
Agents Yes Yes Yes Specifies a required resource on which the pipeline runs.
Approvals Yes No Yes Defines a set of validations required before completing a deployment stage.
Artifacts Yes Yes Yes Supports publishing or consuming different package types.
Caching Yes Yes No Reduces build time by allowing outputs or downloaded dependencies from one run to be reused in later runs. In Preview, available with Azure Pipelines only.
Conditions Yes Yes Yes Specifies conditions to be met before running a job.
Container jobs Yes No No Specifies jobs to run in a container.
Demands Yes Yes Yes Ensures pipeline requirements are met before running a pipeline stage. Requires self-hosted agents.
Dependencies Yes Yes Yes Specifies a requirement that must be met to run the next job or stage.
Deployment groups Yes No Yes Defines a logical set of deployment target machines.
Deployment group jobs No No Yes Specifies a job to release to a deployment group.
Deployment jobs Yes No No Defines the deployment steps. Requires Multi-stage pipelines experience.
Environment Yes No No Represents a collection of resources targeted for deployment. Available with Azure Pipelines only.
Gates No No Yes Supports automatic collection and evaluation of external health signals before completing a release stage. Available with Azure Pipelines only.
Jobs Yes Yes Yes Defines the execution sequence of a set of steps.
Service connections Yes Yes Yes Enables a connection to a remote service that is required to execute tasks in a job.
Service containers Yes No No Enables you to manage the lifecycle of a containerized service.
Stages Yes No Yes Organizes jobs within a pipeline.
Task groups No Yes Yes Encapsulates a sequence of tasks into a single reusable task. If using YAML, see templates.
Tasks Yes Yes Yes Defines the building blocks that make up a pipeline.
Templates Yes No No Defines reusable content, logic, and parameters.
Triggers Yes Yes Yes Defines the event that causes a pipeline to run.
Variables Yes Yes Yes Represents a value to be replaced by data to pass to the pipeline.
Variable groups Yes Yes Yes Use to store values that you want to control and make available across multiple pipelines.

Next unit: Explore release pipelines

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