An Azure Service Connection, in the context of Microsoft Azure DevOps (formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services or VSTS), is a secure and managed link between Azure DevOps and an Azure subscription or service. It allows you to integrate your Azure DevOps pipelines, release pipelines, and other automation processes with resources in your Azure environment.

Azure Service Connections are used to:

1. Authenticate: They provide authentication and authorization mechanisms to securely connect Azure DevOps to Azure services. This eliminates the need to store sensitive credentials in your pipeline scripts.

2. Access Azure Resources: Once connected, you can use these service connections to interact with various Azure resources like virtual machines, databases, storage accounts, and more. This is particularly useful when you want to automate deployment, management, and monitoring tasks from your pipelines.

3. Integrated Pipelines: Azure Service Connections can be used within your build and release pipelines to deploy applications and services to Azure. This integration streamlines the process of building, testing, and deploying your applications.

4. Security and Management: Service connections provide a centralized management point for credentials, allowing administrators to control and monitor the connections being used by different teams and projects.

To create an Azure Service Connection in Azure DevOps:

1. Navigate to Project Settings: Go to your Azure DevOps project, then click on “Project settings” (the gear icon) in the bottom-left corner.

2. Service Connections: Under the “Pipelines” section, you’ll find “Service connections.” Click on it.

3. New Service Connection: Click the “+ New service connection” button and select the type of service connection you want to create (for example, “Azure Resource Manager” for connecting to Azure resources).

4. Authentication: You’ll be prompted to provide authentication details, usually a service principal or a managed identity. This depends on the type of connection you’re setting up.

5. Permissions: Configure the appropriate permissions for the service connection. For example, you might specify which resource groups or subscriptions the service connection can access.

6. Connection Name: Give your service connection a name for easy identification.

7. Save: Finally, save the service connection.

Once you’ve created the Azure Service Connection, you can use it in your pipelines and releases to deploy and manage your Azure resources without exposing sensitive credentials. This ensures security, traceability, and consistency in your deployment processes.