SAs 9.4 configuration management using https://dev.azure.com/

[Acf2]

This request is specific to SAS 9.4 multi-tier on Windows Server >2019

Is anyone using git and https://dev.azure.com/ for managing changes to SAS 9.4 configurations?

Under Unix, we would keep a file with the SAS config locations as an input to a rsync/diff script. Each text file (sasv9.cfg, config.properties, autoexec.sas, etc.) was trackable for changes.

Under Windows, we have PowerShell and VSCode with extensions for SAS, git, Workspaces. 

dev.azure.com repositories have branches, folders, tags, archives that interface with git bash.

Too many choices. 

The objective is for regular Sys Admins to do a lot more as part of their 'Infrastructure as code' framework.

SAS multi-tier has lots of moving parts but not a lot has changed in 10 years but the operational tools have got much better.

[SASKiwi]

IMHO, having SAS config files under version control is of marginal benefit as in my experience they don't change much. If they change only 2 or 3 times a year I find it just as easy to take a copy of the old config, add a timestamp to the filename, then modify the current config. A bit old school, but it works.

Your use case might be different, particularly if you administer large, complex SAS installations that change frequently. AUTOEXECs tend to change more frequently so there is a greater benefit for using version control tools on these.

Having said that, we now have both configs and AUTOEXECs under Azure DevOps / Git change management, along with all SAS applications. MS Visual Studio is the front-end tool and that handles all the Git operations and repository / branch management. Our SAS installations are all on Windows Server. Over 99 percent of our change management is for SAS applications and very little for configs and AUTOEXECs. Enterprise Guide is our primary SAS development interface and that coexists pretty well with Visual Studio. 

[Acf2]

Thanks for the feedback. Making date-stamped versions of files is the current approach. I have seen MS Visual Studio has good interfaces to Azure but we are stuck with VSCode and git bash. 

Our Windows Server 2019 SASv94M8 configuration is relatively simple and could be managed by non-SAS admins. They like Azure DevOps,  scripts and concise documentation but there are no guidelines for configuration management - yet.