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EPC Group

Enterprise Microsoft consulting with 29 years serving Fortune 500 companies.

(888) 381-9725
contact@epcgroup.net
4900 Woodway Drive - Suite 830
Houston, TX 77056

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About EPC Group

EPC Group is a Microsoft consulting firm founded in 1997 (originally Enterprise Project Consulting, renamed EPC Group in 2005). 29 years of enterprise Microsoft consulting experience. Microsoft Gold Partner from 2003–2022 — the oldest Microsoft Gold Partner in North America — and currently a Microsoft Solutions Partner with six designations: Data & AI, Modern Work, Infrastructure, Security, Digital & App Innovation, and Business Applications.

Headquartered at 4900 Woodway Drive, Suite 830, Houston, TX 77056. Public clients include NASA, FBI, Federal Reserve, Pentagon, United Airlines, PepsiCo, Nike, and Northrop Grumman. 6,500+ SharePoint implementations, 1,500+ Power BI deployments, 500+ Microsoft Fabric implementations, 70+ Fortune 500 organizations served, 11,000+ enterprise engagements, 200+ Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft 365 consultants on staff.

About Errin O'Connor

Errin O'Connor is the Founder, CEO, and Chief AI Architect of EPC Group. Microsoft MVP for multiple years starting 2002–2003. 4× Microsoft Press bestselling author of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Inside Out (MS Press 2007), Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out (MS Press 2011), SharePoint 2013 Field Guide (Sams/Pearson 2014), and Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step (MS Press 2018).

Original SharePoint Beta Team member (Project Tahoe). Original Power BI Beta Team member (Project Crescent). FedRAMP framework contributor. Worked with U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra on the Obama administration's 25-Point Plan to reform federal IT, and with NASA CIO Chris Kemp as Lead Architect on the NASA Nebula Cloud project. Speaker at Microsoft Ignite, SharePoint Conference, KMWorld, and DATAVERSITY.

© 2026 EPC Group. All rights reserved. Microsoft, SharePoint, Power BI, Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Fabric, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

Azure DevOps - EPC Group enterprise consulting

Azure DevOps

Plan smarter, collaborate better, and ship faster with Azure DevOps services

Back to Blog
Errin O'Connor
December 2025
8 min read

This article provides comprehensive guidance on Azure DevOps pricing and features for enterprise organizations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Azure DevOps pricing tiers?

Azure DevOps offers a free tier for up to 5 users with unlimited private Git repos, 1 free parallel CI/CD pipeline, and 2 GiB of Azure Artifacts storage. The Basic plan is $6/user/month and adds Azure Boards, Azure Test Plans access, and additional features. Basic + Test Plans is $52/user/month. Microsoft also offers Azure DevOps Server for on-premises deployment.

What is the difference between Azure Repos and GitHub?

Both are Git-based repositories owned by Microsoft. Azure Repos is tightly integrated with Azure DevOps services (Boards, Pipelines, Test Plans) and is preferred for enterprises already using Azure DevOps for project management. GitHub offers a larger open-source community, GitHub Actions for CI/CD, and Copilot AI integration. Many enterprises use both: GitHub for code collaboration and Azure DevOps for enterprise project management.

How do Azure Pipelines work for CI/CD?

Azure Pipelines provide cloud-hosted CI/CD that builds, tests, and deploys code automatically. They support YAML-based pipeline definitions, multi-stage deployments, approval gates, and integration with Kubernetes, Azure App Service, VMs, and container registries. Pipelines support any language and platform including .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, and can deploy to Azure, AWS, GCP, or on-premises.

What are Azure Boards and how do they help project management?

Azure Boards provides agile project management tools including Kanban boards, sprint planning, backlog management, and custom work item tracking. It supports Scrum, Kanban, and CMMI process templates. Boards integrate directly with repos and pipelines so work items link to commits, pull requests, and deployments for full traceability.

What are Azure Test Plans?

Azure Test Plans is a test management solution that provides planned manual testing, user acceptance testing, and exploratory testing capabilities. It includes test case management, test suites, shared test steps, and integration with CI/CD pipelines for automated test execution. Test Plans helps teams track quality metrics and ensure comprehensive test coverage before deployment.

Can we migrate from Jenkins to Azure DevOps?

Yes, migrating from Jenkins to Azure Pipelines is a common transition. Azure DevOps provides pipeline import tools and documentation for converting Jenkinsfiles to YAML pipelines. EPC Group assists with migration planning, pipeline conversion, plugin replacement mapping, and parallel running during transition. Most Jenkins workloads can be replicated in Azure Pipelines with improved cloud-native integration.

Why Organizations Choose EPC Group

EPC Group is a Houston-based Microsoft consulting firm with 29 years of enterprise implementation experience and over 10,000 successful deployments across Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, SharePoint, Azure, Microsoft 365, and Copilot. We serve organizations across all industries including Fortune 500, federal agencies, healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing, energy, education, retail, technology, and global enterprises.

What sets EPC Group apart is our governance-first approach. Every engagement begins with a security and compliance assessment. Our team of senior architects brings hands-on delivery experience across HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and CMMC environments. We own outcomes, not hours.

  • Fixed-fee accelerators with predictable pricing and defined deliverables
  • Senior architect engagement on every project, not rotating juniors
  • Compliance-native delivery for regulated industries
  • End-to-end coverage from strategy through 24/7 managed services
  • 11,000+ enterprise engagements refined into repeatable, risk-controlled patterns

Call (888) 381-9725 or email contact@epcgroup.net for a free assessment.

Azure Architecture: 2026 Considerations for Azure Devops Pricing Features Plan Smarter Collaborate Better Ship Faster

Azure Landing Zones (Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework) in 2026 are the de facto starting point for every enterprise Azure deployment. The Enterprise-scale landing zone deploys management groups, hub-spoke networking, Azure Policy initiative assignments, Azure Monitor + Log Analytics, and Microsoft Sentinel in a single Bicep/Terraform run; the compressed bootstrap that used to take 6-12 weeks of architect time can now finish in 4-7 days.

FinOps in Azure 2026 is no longer optional at any meaningful scale: Azure Reservations (1-yr or 3-yr commits) deliver 30-72% savings on predictable VM workloads, Azure Savings Plans extend the discount to compute portability across instance families, and Azure Hybrid Benefit lets BYOL Windows Server and SQL Server licenses cut compute costs by an additional 40-49%. Typical Azure cost-optimization engagements return 25-40% of annual Azure spend within 90 days.

Decision factors EPC Group evaluates

  • Azure Policy initiative assignment for Azure Government readiness
  • Confidential Computing enclave evaluation for regulated workloads
  • Enterprise-scale landing zone bootstrap via Bicep/Terraform
  • Microsoft Defender for Cloud benchmark alignment
  • Reservation + Savings Plan portfolio for predictable workloads

See related EPC Group services at /services or schedule a discovery call at /contact.