Lab 00: Validate lab environment

Student lab manual

Instructions

Note: Start at step 4, if you do already have a personal Microsoft Account setup and an active Microsoft Azure Pass subscription linked to that account.

  1. Get a new Azure Pass promocode from the instructor or other source.
  2. Use a private browser session to get a new personal Microsoft Account (MSA) at https://account.microsoft.com.

  3. Using the same browser session, go to https://www.microsoftazurepass.com to redeem your Azure Pass using your Microsoft Account (MSA). For details, see Redeem a Microsoft Azure Pass. Follow the instructions for redemption.

  4. Open a browser and navigate to https://portal.azure.com, then search at the top of the Azure portal screen for Azure DevOps. In the resulting page, click Azure DevOps organizations.
  5. Next, click on the link labelled My Azure DevOps Organizations or navigate directly to https://aex.dev.azure.com.
  6. On the We need a few more details page, select Continue.
  7. In the drop-down box on the left, choose Default Directory, instead of “Microsoft Account”.
  8. If prompted (“We need a few more details”), provide your name, e-mail address, and location and click Continue.
  9. Back at https://aex.dev.azure.com with Default Directory selected click the blue button Create new organization.
  10. Accept the Terms of Service by clicking Continue.
  11. If prompted (“Almost done”), leave the name for the Azure DevOps organization at default (it needs to be a globally unique name) and pick a hosting location close to you from the list.
  12. Once the newly created organization opens in Azure DevOps, click Organization settings in the bottom left corner.
  13. At the Organization settings screen click Billing (opening this screen takes a few seconds).
  14. Click Setup billing and on the right-hand side of the screen select the Azure Pass - Sponsorship subscription and click Save to link the subscription with the organization.
  15. Once the screen shows the linked Azure Subscription ID at the top, change the number of Paid parallel jobs for MS Hosted CI/CD from 0 to 1. Then click the SAVE button at the bottom.
  16. In Organization Settings, go to section Security and click Policies.
  17. Toggle the switch to On for Third-party application access via OAuth

    Note: The OAuth setting helps enable tools such as the DemoDevOpsGenerator to register extensions. Without this, several labs may fail due to a lack of the required extensions.

  18. Toggle the switch to On for Allow public projects

    Note: Extensions used in some labs might require a public project to allow using the free version.

  19. Wait at least 3 hours before using the CI/CD capabilities so that the new settings are reflected in the backend. Otherwise, you will still see the message “No hosted parallelism has been purchased or granted”.
  20. OPTIONAL: you can validate these new settings have been successfully applied by creating and triggering a build pipeline. To do this either talk to the instructor or create a demo project into the newly created organization with billing enabled, using Azure DevOps Demo Generator.