Azure Service Fabric - continuous integration on VSTS - azure

Is it possible to setup Continuous Integration on VSTS without using external VM as build agent (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/service-fabric-set-up-continuous-integration/)?
What I would like to achieve is to have one Service Fabric Solution with 2 statefull/stateless services (serviceA and serviceB). I want to build and deploy them separately as different build jobs on VSTS, but to deployed them to the same Service Fabric Cluster on Azure (fabric:/App/ServiceA, fabric:/App/ServiceB).

As of the Service Fabric SDK 2.1.150 and Runtime 5.1.150 release, it is possible to deploy Service Fabric application using VSTS's hosted build agent as the dependencies can be added via a NuGet package - refer to the following video for details. http://www.dotjson.uk/azure-service-fabric-continous-integration-and-deployment-in-15-minutes/
In your specific case; just create 2 build definitions (1 for each service) and 2 release definitions (1 for each service) and hook them up to the same hosted Service Fabric cluster.

Unfortunately deploying applications relies on the Service Fabric SDK being installed so you'll need to set up an agent as the instructions suggest. If you don't want to pay for the Azure VM, you might want to consider running the agent service locally e.g. On your devbox.
Note that with Service Fabric you deploy applications, not services. You can however update services independently.

It sounds like you need to have service fabric SDK installed on the build machine, and I'm guessing the hosted agent doesn't have that. If that's the case, then yes you need to create your own build server VM

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Automated way to add & deploy SPFX sppkg solution package file to SharePoint 2019 (on-premises) app catalog

I'm looking for an automated way for adding & deploying SPFX solution package (*.sppkg) into the SharePoint 2019 (NOT online) app catalog. This is cause and doing the deploying using azure devops (CI/CD) release pipeline.
I found those two below tasks for adding this package:
The first one worked fine in just adding the file to the app catalog but not deploying it, so I had to do it manually.
The second task has the option to write PnP script against SharePoint, but the problem with me is that most of the scripts i found are for SharePoint Online not on premise.
Appreciate your support if you had such situation and got it solved using PnP or something else.
Microsoft's official documentation describes an approach to continuous deployment using Azure DevOps. You can click Implement Continuous Integration and Continuous deployment using Azure DevOps for detailed information. There is no need to write PNP scripts using this method.
Setting up Azure DevOps for Continuous Deployments with a SharePoint
Framework solution requires the following steps:
Creating the Release Definition
Linking the Build Artifact
Creating the Environment
Installing NodeJS
Installing the CLI for Microsoft 365
Connecting to the App Catalog
Adding the Solution Package to the App Catalog
Deploying the Application
Setting the Variables for the Environment
If you just want to use Azure DevOps CD and don't want to use CI, you can skip the second step and upload your build artifacts directly to the repository, and then use them in the release pipeline.
There are some basic scenarion for using pipelines:
You use cloud pipeline (azure, github, etc) with their abilities and their purpuse.
You create own environment with self-hosted pipelines
You add own runner (pipeline agent) to your cloud (azure) environment
So, azure allows you to add own pipeline agent to environment. For example, self-hosting windows agent.
So, I think solution in your case will be:
Install self-hosted agent
Configure agent environment - installing SharePointPnPPowerShell2019
Add agent to your azure environment
Add step to deploy your solution into pipline with using self-hosted agent
This scenario allows you to deploy sppkg solutions without publish your app catalog to internet, because your self-hosted agent will be in the save network as your sharepoint farm.
Azure pipeline deploy steps allow to run powershell on target machines
Prerequisites This task uses Windows Remote Management (WinRM) to
access on-premises physical computers or virtual computers that are
domain-joined or workgroup-joined.

Develop on Azure DevOps and deploy to another cloud service

We have been developing an Angular application on Azure DevOps. My company wants to have the app running on another cloud service. Can anyone tell me: Can we create a pipeline that will deploy the production version of our application from build in Azure to this other cloud service? What are the pitfalls or potential obstacles? Is anyone doing it already that could speak to it from your experience? Thanks in advance.
If you want to deploy Angular application on Azure DevOps to Azure App Service via Azure Pipelines, you could follow below steps.
Create a build pipeline, add a npm task to install the npm packages required by the Angular application
use npm task to build the application and produce the assets to be published on the web server
Add a Publish Build Artifact task that generates the artifacts which will be provided later on as an input to release definition
The last step is to add a CD pipeline which will deploy the artifacts created by the build to the Azure Web App by using this Azure App Service Deploy task. See this tutorial for details.
If want to deploy to other cloud service, this doc provides the system-defined tasks, you could review it to find if there are existing available tasks. If not, you may need to develop a custom pipelines task extension or find if there are existing extensions in the Azure DevOps Marketplace.

How to create startup tasks (or install dependencies) in Azure Web App?

There is a Cloud Service in Azure classic deployment model. In the Cloud Service you can add web role and set up a startup tasks. If your application has any dependencies that require installation on the destination VM or controll over IIS-related settings, you can use a startup tasks to provide an unattended deployment for this configuration. For example, if you need installed software on the backend side, you can run MSI in startup task to install it.
Unfortunately, I can't find this functionality in new Azure Resource Manager model. My Web App need some installed software on backend side, but I can't figure out how to install it. Could you help me with this?
You can't. Web App (or App Service) doesn't give you control over the underlying OS. You should consider containerizing your app and run it through using e. g. ACI or AKS.
A Cloud Service was nothing more than a VM with extended support in Visual Studio. Cloud Services are deprecated but you can still create a VM in Azure and install your dependencies.

Azure App service with or without docker

I have some experience in using azure app services without docker. I did worked on k8 with docker. Now I am seeing an option to deploy containers in azure app services. As per my understanding app services internally use container and orchestration engine. Now someone can explain why this new docker option in azure app services? How it is going to help? When to use this option? Why I should bundle it as docker(extra effort eventhough it trivial)?
Azure App Service on Linux (Web App with built-in images)
The built-in image option running on Linux is an extension of a current Azure App Service offering, catering to developers who want to use FTP or GIT, deploy .NET Core, Node, PHP or Ruby applications to Azure App Service running on Linux
All of the built-in Docker images are open sourced on GitHub and available on DockerHub
Now someone can explain why this new docker option in the azure app
services?
Web App for Containers is catered more towards developers who want to have more control over, not just the code, but also the different packages, runtime framework, tooling etc. that are installed on their containers.
Customers of this offering prefer to package their code and dependencies into containers using various CI/CD systems like Jenkins, Maven, Travis CI or VSTS, alongside setting up continuous deployment webhooks with App Service.
This way you can easily deploy and run containerized applications that scale with your business.
How it is going to help?
This will make sure that the environment that you use locally, is
exactly the same as the one in the cloud.
Just pull container images from Docker Hub or a private Azure
Container Registry and Web App for Containers will deploy the containerized app with your preferred dependencies to production in seconds.
Automate and simplify your container image deployments through
continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) capabilities
with Docker Hub, Azure Container Registry, and Visual Studio Team
Services
Automatically scale vertically and horizontally based on application
needs. Granular scaling rules are available to handle peaks in
workload automatically while minimizing costs during off-peak times
When to use this option?
If you are so passionate/familiar with Docker/container then you can
use the Azure App service with the container.
If you are planning to host all your container in ACS(Azure Container
Service)/GitHub Repository then this service might be useful
You can refer to this blog for more details

Release Management Azure Website

How can I publish to an Azure Website (NO VM!) using Microsoft Release Management.
At the moment, ms release management only seems to support deploying to Azure VM's. I like MS Release Management system as it lets me control my deployment variables across multiple deployment stages.
Basically, this is not a supported scenario out of the box.
Your best bet here is to use an agent-based release template with a "springboard" server to manage the release, and custom PowerShell scripts that use the Azure SDK to interact with Azure. One of my colleagues did the leg work to figure it out a few months ago, and has a few comprehensive blog posts describing how he accomplished deploying an Azure Web Application via RM.
Visual Studio Release Management now offers built-in steps to manage Azure App Services. In a Release Management process add the Azure App Service Deploy step, and configure for your website. Note that this step requires your site to be published as a .zip file.
In addition to the deploy step, it is best practice to deploy to an inactive slot, or stop / start the site using the Azure App Service Manage steps in Release Management.
For now, you should take a look at the new build system, it has an out of box task to deploy a package to azure web app.

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