Azure DevOps vs Azure MLOps – Outcomes and Processes

Digital transformation has changed the pace at which businesses innovate and disrupt the market. Businesses across sectors are investing in building up technology capabilities to build new products and services. They are leveraging data to predict and capitalize on potential trends. 

However, a key challenge faced by businesses is the struggle to innovate quickly enough to keep pace with market demands. Secondly, doing it cost-effectively is also a challenge. 

This is where SaaS (software as a service), and machine learning operations platforms come to the rescue. Instead of building the technology from scratch, businesses can access ready-to-use tools, resources, and apps, which are stored on the cloud, and serve their technology needs more efficiently. 

In this blog, we delve into the key differences and benefits of leveraging Azure DevOps and Azure MLOps, two popular cloud-based platforms, and products of Microsoft’s Azure, being used by businesses to accelerate growth. 

Table Of Contents:

• What Is Azure DevOps?  
• What Is Azure MLOps?  
• What are the Key Capabilities of Azure DevOps vs. Azure MLOps?
• What are the Key Advantages of Azure DevOps? 
• A Growing Market Size
• Conclusion

What Is Azure DevOps? 

DevOps is the process of software development when integrated with operations, to expedite the pace at which product and service innovation happens. Traditionally, this is a complex, and expensive process which requires several skill sets and access to resources, to make it happen. 

However, SaaS platforms such as Azure DevOps have simplified and streamlined the process. Any business can launch an account on the platform, and start leveraging it to expedite software development to meet the needs of their business. 

Azure DevOps provides tools for superior team collaboration, automated processes, version control, testing, and release management, thus covering the end-to-end development and deployment cycle.

For instance, Azure Repos, a version control toolkit, enables development teams to manage their application code. Azure Pipelines automate building and testing code for multiple projects.

What Is Azure MLOps? 

MLOps or Machine learning operations refers to the process of taking machine learning models to the production stage, followed by the maintenance and monitoring of the model. It is a type of DevOps, in a way. 

Azure MLOps is a cloud-based platform that enables businesses to streamline the complete development and deployment of machine learning models. The aim is to expedite the process of data collection, processing, and evaluation, to support their business needs.

Businesses can develop and deploy the entire model using a single, unified platform, thus simplifying the process, and making it more cost-effective. This is an important activity for any business grappling with massive amounts of data coming from multiple sources.

Data can be a goldmine. However, without an effective processing mechanism, it can be a lost opportunity for businesses

What are the Key Capabilities of Azure DevOps vs. Azure MLOps?

Azure DevOps enables a business to develop, test, and release an application, from scratch to the end of the cycle. The platform is used by software engineers, and DevOps engineers to expedite the development and deployment of new products and services. 

On the other hand, Azure MLOps enables businesses to develop, test, and develop a machine learning model from scratch to the end of the cycle.

The platform is used by data scientists and machine learning engineers to experiment with new machine learning models that deliver accurate analytics that help predict trends and respond to real-time challenges with innovative solutions, faster. 

Also Read: Best Online Training Platforms: An Overview and their Benefits

What are the Key Advantages of Azure DevOps?

Building new products and services can be an expensive undertaking for businesses, especially for those with a tech-dependent business model. Traditionally, businesses would need to invest in server space, data storage, technology tools, and other resources. 

However, leveraging the benefits of Azure DevOps and MLOps gives businesses, access to tools, resources, data, storage access, and automated processes that bring efficiency to all development operations. 

For instance, Azure DevOps comes with a ready-to-use Azure DevOps server. The platform also enables operations and development teams to create, collaborate, and run their DevOps projects, seamlessly, using Azure DevOps project management capabilities.

This is also a great training ground for a DevOps developer to invest in DevOps learning, build new skills, experiment, and accelerate innovation. 

MLOps on the other hand offers features such as Azure ML Designer, which allows businesses to build an ML pipeline sans writing any code. Businesses can also monitor ML models, use available data sets for experimentation, and store their data in Azure Storage. 

Businesses using platforms like Azure DevOps and Azure MLOps are in a position to save time, effort, and financial resources by leveraging the benefits of such platforms. They can take products to market quicker, and get a competitive advantage. 

A Growing Market Size

As more consumers leverage technology to simplify their daily lives, and businesses leverage technology for a spectrum of needs, the DevOps and MLOps market size will continue to grow. 

In 2020, the worldwide DevOps market size was valued at $6.78 billion. The pandemic led to a spurt of DevOps activities, due to the need for innovative solutions to new market challenges. DevOps global market size is expected to grow by $57.90 billion by 2030, accelerating at a compound annual growth rate of 24.2% during this period. 

As the adoption of tech grows, more data will enter online ecosystems, driving businesses to innovate on how data is handled, processed, and leveraged to drive business goals. This is where MLOps kicks.

The worldwide MLOps market size was estimated to be worth $983.6 million in 2021. By 2030, it is expected to reach a size of $23.1 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 37.5% during this period. 

Also Read: What is Cloud Adoption?10 Key Benefits of Adopting Cloud Computing for Businesses

In Conclusion 

Platforms such as Azure DevOps and Azure MLOps are continuously enhancing their services, to be relevant to the changing needs of businesses. Business teams can expedite the life cycles of project development, enhance accuracy, work with lean teams, and bring more efficiency to operations. 

If your business is looking to ramp up your DevOps and MLOps capabilities, Hurix Digital can step in as an implementation partner to help your team get started. Our in-house teams bring extensive knowledge of the end-to-end DevOps and ML cycle to help set up and run operations.  

Get in touch with us to start a conversation.