Agent Pool & Deployment Pool

Question

I have to configure the CI/CD pipelines for 2 web applications hosted in On-Premise environments & those web applications have multiple platforms (i.e. Dev, Test, QA & Prod). Both are .net applications. On-premise application source code was located on TFVC & recently have been migrated to Azure DevOps (Git).

Now, next step is to build the CI/CD pipelines for these applications. Also, other projects which are already on Azure DevOps, as per customer security standards, Agent pools are being used for build pipelines & Deployment pools/Deployment groups are used for release pipelines & hence we would need to go by the similar approach to build the CI/CD pipeline for 2 applications. Customer would like to use existing deployment pool to be used for rest 2 applications as well. Hence no need to build deployment pools so existing deployment pool could cater to multiple projects. How to achieve it?

Now, looking at the existing configuration of Agent Pools in Azure DevOps, we see that they are using Build Agent hosted in On-premise (TFS server itself) & is being used for building code for few projects.

Can same TFS server i.e. Build Agent could be used for other projects as well? Do we need to install Build agent again onto that server & run commands?

How about release pipeline? I assume, we need to build multiple stages for the release to happen.

Can someone explain step by step process please? I am not from development background & hence struggling a little bit.

Answer 1

You donot need to create new build agents or deployment pools for another projects in the same organization.

You can using the existing build agent pools and deployment pools in multiple projects by following below steps.

Go to project settings of the other project-->Agent pools under Pipelines-->Add Pool-->Existing-->Select an existing pool

Then the two projects can share the same build agents in the same agent pool.

Adding deployment pools to other project is simple too. See below:

In the portal of the other project-->Go the Deployment groups in Pipelines section-->go to Available pools tab-->Click the plus "+" to add the existing deployment pool to this project.

Then the release pipelines of both projects can target the same deployment pool.

Update:

If you cannot adding the existiong agent pool. You probably donot have the permission. You need to ask the administrator to add you as the reader. See below steps:

Go to the Organization Setting-->Agent pools under Pipelines-->Select the agent pool you want add to another project-->Go to Security Tab-->Add your account as Reader.