Create an Azure DevOps organization

This is where the new Unified ALM guide starts. First, we’ll configure an Azure DevOps organization and project for our repos and pipelines.

What’s an Azure DevOps organization? #

When you work in Visual Studio and connect it to an AZDO project, this project is inside an organization. Organizations are created at tenant-level and can represent different concepts:

• An entire company
• A branch
• A business unit
• A team
• …

So it’s up to you, and your business, to decide what your organization will be. A tenant can have multiple organizations. A small-mid company might have only one organization and have several projects in it, while bigger companies might have several organizations, splitting projects per department.

So this is really the point when we should start planning and defining this.

Create an Azure DevOps organization #

The first step to create an Azure DevOps organization will be going to https://dev.azure.com:

Click the “Start free” button. After logging in, it will take you to a sign-up form that asks for your Country/region. This is not where your Azure DevOps organization will be created, but where you are located:

After selecting our location, we must select a name for our new Azure DevOps organization:

And now it’s time for the first two decisions because we have to select the name of our organization, and in which region we’ll create our Azure DevOps organization. Unlike the previous screen, this is where we select the actual Azure region the organization is created. By default, your organization is associated with the closest geography based on your location.

The smartest and most common thing would be selecting the one nearest to you physically. If after creating your organization you want to change the region, an organization administrator can do it.

And after pressing the continue button our organization will be created. Next step, create a new project.