As an alternative to replacing no longer preferred tools, it is also possible to integrate them with the preferred tool. Especially when it has been decided to move to Azure DevOps, this can be a powerful strategy. In many of the chapters before, for each topic, different tools were listed that integrate with Azure DevOps.

When pursuing end-to-end traceability, these integrations can be used as a means to bring tools closer together. Consider the following example.

An organization is using Azure DevOps for managing work items, hosting Git repositories, and executing build pipelines. Deployments are done using Octopus Deploy for historic reasons. Since a full migration is too costly, as an alternative, an integration strategy is chosen. Triggering the Octopus Deploy not manually but automatically from Azure DevOps meets several goals:

• End-to-end automation is achieved.
• Release management can now also be done in Azure DevOps, even though each deployment in Azure DevOps is no more than triggering Octopus Deploy.
• Having release management in Azure DevOps now allows for end-to-end traceability.

When consolidating tools, and really all things regarding DevOps, one thing that you must be ready to accept is that you are never done.