Azure FinOps Essentials

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Hi there, and welcome to this week’s edition of Azure FinOps Essentials! 🎉

In this edition, I’m exploring Azure DevOps and its pricing model. Azure DevOps is an all-in-one platform for development teams, offering tools for CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, and project tracking. With its flexible licensing options and the ability to integrate with GitHub, it’s a powerful solution for streamlining workflows.

We’ll explore how Azure DevOps’ pricing works, what’s included in the basic and advanced plans, and how to optimize costs for your organization.

Let’s look closer at how you can balance productivity and cost efficiency in Azure DevOps.

Cheers, Michiel

Introduction

Azure DevOps is Microsoft’s cloud-based platform that supports every stage of the software development lifecycle. With tools like Boards for agile planning, Repos for source control, Pipelines for CI/CD automation, Test Plans for quality assurance, and Artifacts for package management, it provides a comprehensive solution for development teams. Azure DevOps is designed to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and enable efficient delivery of applications, making it a go-to choice for many organizations.

While Azure DevOps is a powerful offering, it shares the spotlight with GitHub, another Microsoft-owned platform. GitHub, with its emphasis on open-source collaboration and community-driven development, follows a different payment model. Interestingly, there’s interoperability between the two platforms: if you have Azure DevOps, you’re eligible for a free GitHub Enterprise license. Similarly, GitHub Enterprise users receive basic usage rights for Azure DevOps.

In this edition, I’ll focus specifically on Azure DevOps, breaking down its pricing model and offering insights into how its costs align with the value it delivers. Whether you’re considering Azure DevOps for your team or want to understand its cost structure better, this edition will provide clarity on what to expect.

Azure DevOps Pricing: Breaking Down the Costs

Azure DevOps offers a comprehensive set of tools for development teams, and its pricing structure is designed to scale with your team’s needs. Whether you’re a small startup testing the waters or a large enterprise running complex pipelines, Azure DevOps has a plan that fits. But understanding how these costs are built can help you make the most of its flexibility.

Two Main Plans: Basic and Basic + Test Plans

At its core, Azure DevOps has two primary user-based plans:

The Basic Plan is an excellent starting point for small teams. It includes 5 free users, which covers features like Azure Boards for work tracking, Azure Repos for unlimited private Git repositories, and Azure Pipelines with free CI/CD minutes. If your team grows, each additional user costs just $6 per month. For most teams, this is more than enough to get started with agile planning and version control.

If your team requires advanced testing capabilities, the Basic + Test Plans option is available at $52 per user per month. This plan builds on the Basic Plan by adding rich testing tools, such as test planning, tracking, browser-based tests with annotations, and centralized reporting. While the Test Plans features are robust, they significantly increase costs, so they’re best suited for teams with heavy testing needs.

Going Beyond the Basics: Additional Services

In addition to the user plans, Azure DevOps offers several add-ons for specific needs:

• Azure Pipelines provides CI/CD capabilities with a flexible payment model. The free tier includes one Microsoft-hosted job with 1,800 minutes per month and one self-hosted job with unlimited minutes. For teams needing more, additional Microsoft-hosted jobs cost $40 each per month, while self-hosted jobs are $15 each per month.

• Azure Artifacts is perfect for managing packages. You get 2 GiB of free storage for NuGet, Maven, npm, and Python packages, with additional storage starting at $2 per GiB.

• GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps, at $49 per committer per month, integrates essential security features like secret scanning, code scanning, and dependency scanning directly into Azure DevOps.

These services provide flexibility, but they also require careful monitoring to avoid unexpected costs.

Optimizing Azure DevOps Costs

Managing costs in Azure DevOps requires a proactive approach to ensure you’re not overspending on resources or licenses. Here are some practical strategies to help you optimize your spending:

Maximize Stakeholder Licenses

Not every team member needs a paid license. Azure DevOps provides free Stakeholder licenses for users who don’t commit code but still need access to work items, approvals, or project tracking. These are ideal for project managers, product owners, and business stakeholders.

If you’re unsure about a user’s needs, you can always assign them a Stakeholder license temporarily and upgrade later if required. This small adjustment can significantly reduce licensing costs.

Leverage Visual Studio Subscriptions

If you or your team members already have Visual Studio Subscriptions, ensure that Azure DevOps recognizes these licenses. Matching the email addresses used for Visual Studio and Azure DevOps is crucial.

To set this up:

1. Visit my.visualstudio.com and navigate to the Subscriptions page.

2. Assign an alternate account to link your Visual Studio subscription with Azure DevOps.

This ensures you’re not paying twice for the same access.

Combine with GitHub licenses

And there’s more: Azure DevOps and GitHub have a reciprocal relationship. If you have a GitHub Enterprise license, you get access to Azure DevOps Basic usage rights and vice versa. This makes it easier to integrate these platforms without duplicating costs.

Optimize Pipeline Usage

Parallelism in Azure Pipelines can quickly add to your costs if not managed carefully. If you need to run multiple pipelines simultaneously, you’ll have to purchase additional jobs.

However, Visual Studio Subscribers receive an extra self-hosted parallel job for each Azure DevOps Services organization they’re a part of. Make sure to take advantage of this benefit to save on pipeline costs.

Keep Artifact Storage in Check

Azure Artifacts provides 2 GB of free storage, but exceeding this limit incurs additional charges. To avoid unnecessary costs:

• Regularly monitor your storage usage.

• Delete old artifacts that are no longer needed.

• Adjust your retention policies to automatically remove unused artifacts after a set period.

These small changes can help you stay within the free tier and prevent unexpected charges.

Track and Adjust

Regular monitoring is the key to cost optimization. Keep an eye on your usage patterns, and periodically review the licenses, storage, and pipeline configurations to identify areas where you can cut back without compromising productivity. Azure DevOps provides tools to analyze your organization’s resource usage, making it easier to identify opportunities for cost savings.

Conclusion

Azure DevOps is a powerful and versatile tool for managing your development lifecycle, offering seamless integrations and robust features. With the updated license structure and closer ties to GitHub, it provides even more flexibility and options for teams.

However, like any SaaS solution, keeping track of usage is essential. Monitor licenses, storage, and pipelines regularly to ensure cost efficiency. By making small adjustments, you can enjoy the full benefits of Azure DevOps without overspending.

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If you want more FinOps news, then have a look at FinOps Weekly by Victor Garcia