Exam AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions is a certification exam offered by Microsoft that validates the skills and knowledge of candidates in implementing DevOps practices using Microsoft Azure technologies.
The exam measures the candidate’s ability to design and implement strategies for managing source code, building and deploying applications, testing and releasing software, and monitoring and optimizing Azure solutions.
Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions Glossary
- DevOps: A software development approach that combines software development and IT operations to shorten the development cycle, increase collaboration, and deliver software quickly and efficiently.
- Learn Continuous Integration (CI): Developers often combine their code into a shared place, and it gets built and tested automatically.
- Continuous Delivery (CD): A practice in which software is built, tested, and deployed automatically to a production environment.
- Continuous Deployment (CD): A practice in which software is automatically deployed to production as soon as it passes all automated tests.
- Release Pipeline: A series of stages that a software release goes through before it is deployed to production.
- Artifact: A file generated during the build process that is used for deploying the software.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): The practice of automating the creation and management of infrastructure resources using code.
- Configuration Management: The process of managing changes to software and infrastructure configurations to ensure consistency and stability.
- Test Automation: The process of automating the execution of tests to ensure software quality.
- Agile: A way of making software that focuses on working together, being flexible, and making the customer happy, and it happens step by step.
- Scrum: A popular Agile methodology that emphasizes small, self-organizing teams that work in short sprints.
- Kanban: An Agile methodology that emphasizes visualizing and managing workflow to improve efficiency and reduce waste.
- User Story: A description of a software feature from the perspective of an end user.
- Backlog: A prioritized list of work items that need to be complete for a software project.
- Sprint: A time-box period of development in which a set of work items is complete and a working software increment is delivered.
Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions Exam Guide
Here are some useful resources to help you prepare for Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions:
- Official Exam page: The official Microsoft Exam AZ-400 webpage gives you information about the exam, like what skills it tests, how it’s structured, and how to register for it.
- Microsoft Learn: Microsoft Learn offers a wide range of free online courses, tutorials, and learning paths to help you prepare for the exam.
- Microsoft Docs: Microsoft Docs provides extensive documentation on Azure DevOps, Git, and other relevant technologies.
- Pluralsight: Pluralsight offers a range of online courses on Azure DevOps, Git, and other relevant technologies. Here are some relevant courses:
- Azure DevOps: The Big Picture: This course provides an overview of Azure DevOps, including how to manage projects, build pipelines, and release pipelines.
- Git Fundamentals: In this course, you’ll learn the basics of Git, like making and handling repositories, creating branches, and combining changes.
- Exam Study Groups: You can find online communities of people who are also preparing for Exam AZ-400.
Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions Tips and Tricks
Here are some tips and tricks to help you prepare for Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions:
- Understanding the exam format:
- Knowing the skills measured: The exam measures your skills in several areas, including designing a DevOps strategy, implementing DevOps development processes, implementing continuous integration and delivery, and managing application infrastructure. Be sure to review the skills measured in detail.
- Get hands-on experience: To get ready for the exam, the most effective way is to actually use Azure DevOps, Git, and similar tools. Try creating CI/CD pipelines, working with infrastructure as code, and applying agile methods.
- Studying the documentation: The official documentation for Azure DevOps, Git, and other relevant technologies is a valuable resource for preparing for the exam. Be sure to study the documentation thoroughly.
- Using practice tests: Doing practice tests can show you what areas you need to work on and let you experience how the exam is structured. You can find practice tests for free or pay for them online.
- Join a study group: Joining a study group can provide a supportive community to help you prepare for the exam. You can find study groups on social media platforms or online forums.
- Managing your time wisely: Be sure to manage your time wisely during the exam. If you get stuck on a question, move on and come back to it later.
- Reading the questions carefully: Read each question carefully and make sure you understand what is being asked before selecting an answer.
Microsoft Exam AZ-400 Study Guide
If you are an aspirant and belong to the list of applicants who are aspire about the AZ-400 certification, then you should read this Microsoft Azure DevOps AZ-400 exam study guide. Moreover, we can guarantee that the candidate will prepare the right strategies and the good AZ-400 Azure DevOps Solutions exam study materials from this guide. Anytime, the candidate can examine this article as a recommendation material or preparation guide for the Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions AZ-400 exam. Here, we will present comprehensive instructions and adequate AZ-400 Azure DevOps Solutions exam study elements for helping the candidate to gear up their AZ-400 exam preparation.
Analysing the Objectives
The AZ-400 exam is arrange so as to examine a candidate’s abilities to complete the tasks. Here, the percentage value shows the relative importance of the module in the overall exam. However, the more candidates focus on modules with a higher percentage, they are likely to score more extra marks in the exam.
1. Design and implement processes and communications (10–15%)
Design and implement traceability and flow of work
- Design and implement a structure for the flow of work, including GitHub Flow
- Design and implement a strategy for feedback cycles, including notifications and issues
- Design and implement integration for tracking work, including GitHub projects, Azure Boards, and repositories
- Design and implement source, bug, and quality traceability
Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for DevOps
- Design and implement a dashboard, including flow of work, such as cycle times, time to recovery, and lead time
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for project planning
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for development
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for testing
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for security
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for delivery
- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for operations
Configure collaboration and communication
- Document a project by configuring wikis and process diagrams, including Markdown and Mermaid syntax (Microsoft Documentation: Create a wiki for your project)
- Configure release documentation, including release notes and API documentation (Microsoft Documentation: Releases, Releases – List)
- Automate creation of documentation from Git history (Microsoft Documentation: Understand Git history simplification)
- Configure notifications by using webhooks (Microsoft Documentation: Set up notifications for changes in resource data)
- Configure integration between Azure Boards and GitHub repositories
- Configure integration between GitHub or Azure DevOps and Microsoft Teams
2. Design and implement a source control strategy (10–15%)
Plan and implement branching strategies for the source code
- Design a branch strategy, including trunk-based, feature branch, and release branch (Microsoft Documentation: Adopt a Git branching strategy)
- Design and implement a pull request workflow by using branch policies and branch protections (Microsoft Documentation: Branch policies and settings)
- Implement branch merging restrictions by using branch policies and branch protections (Microsoft Documentation: About branches and branch policies)
Configure and manage repositories
- Design and implement a strategy for managing large files, including Git Large File Storage (LFS) and git-fat
- Design a strategy for scaling and optimizing a Git repository, including Scalar and cross-repository sharing
- Configure permissions in the source control repository (Microsoft Documentation: Set Git repository permissions)
- Configure tags to organize the source control repository (Microsoft Documentation: Set Git repository settings and policies)
- Recover data by using Git commands (Microsoft Documentation: Git command reference)
- Remove specific data from source control
3. Design and implement build and release pipelines (50–55%)
Design and implement a package management strategy
- Recommend package management tools including GitHub Packages registry and Azure Artifacts
- Design and implement package feeds and views for local and upstream packages (Microsoft Documentation: Upstream sources)
- Design and implement a dependency versioning strategy for code assets and packages, including semantic versioning (SemVer) and date-based (CalVer) (Microsoft Documentation: Implement a versioning strategy, Package versioning)
- Design and implement a versioning strategy for pipeline artifacts (Microsoft Documentation: Implement a versioning strategy)
Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines
- Design and implement quality and release gates, including security and governance
- Design a comprehensive testing strategy, including local tests, unit tests, integration tests, and load tests
- Implement tests in a pipeline, including configuring test tasks, configuring test agents, and integration of test results
- Implement code coverage analysis
Design and implement pipelines
- Select a deployment automation solution, including GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines (Microsoft Documentation: Deploy to App Service using GitHub Actions)
- Design and implement a GitHub runner or Azure DevOps agent infrastructure, including cost, tool selection, licenses, connectivity, and maintainability
- Design and implement integration between GitHub repositories and Azure Pipelines
- Develop and implement pipeline trigger rules (Microsoft Documentation: Trigger one pipeline after another)
- Develop pipelines by using YAML (Microsoft Documentation: Create your first pipeline)
- Design and implement a strategy for job execution order, including parallelism and multi-stage pipelines (Microsoft Documentation: Task Parallel Library (TPL), jobs.job.strategy definition)
- Develop and implement complex pipeline scenarios, such as hybrid pipelines, VM templates, and self-hosted runners or agents
- Create reusable pipeline elements, including YAML templates, task groups, variables, and variable groups (Microsoft Documentation: Define variables)
- Design and implement checks and approvals by using YAML-based environments (Microsoft Documentation: Release deployment control using approvals)
Design and implement deployments
- Design a deployment strategy, including blue/green, canary, ring, progressive exposure, feature flags, and A/B testing (Microsoft Documentation: Progressive experimentation with feature flags)
- Design a pipeline to ensure that dependency deployments are reliably ordered (Microsoft Documentation: Add stages, dependencies, & conditions)
- Plan for minimizing downtime during deployments by using virtual IP address (VIP) swap, load balancing, rolling deployments, and deployment slot usage and swap (Microsoft Documentation: Swap or switch deployments in Azure Cloud Services)
- Design a hotfix path plan for responding to high-priority code fixes (Microsoft Documentation: Using a hotfix production environment)
- Design and implement a resiliency strategy for deployment
- Implement feature flags by using Azure App Configuration Feature Manager (Microsoft Documentation: Manage feature flags in Azure App Configuration)
- Implement application deployment by using containers, binaries, and scripts (Microsoft Documentation: App Service overview)
- Implement a deployment that includes database tasks
Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC)
- Recommend a configuration management technology for application infrastructure (Microsoft Documentation: Configuration Manager)
- Implement a configuration management strategy for application infrastructure
- Define an IaC strategy, including source control and automation of testing and deployment (Microsoft Documentation: infrastructure as code (IaC))
- Design and implement desired state configuration for environments, including Azure Automation State Configuration, Azure Resource Manager, Bicep, and Azure Automanage Machine Configuration
- Design and implement Azure Deployment Environments for on-demand self-deployment
Maintain pipelines
- Monitor pipeline health, including failure rate, duration, and flaky tests (Microsoft Documentation: Manage flaky tests)
- Optimize pipelines for cost, time, performance, and reliability (Microsoft Documentation: Tradeoffs for performance efficiency)
- Optimize pipeline concurrency for performance and cost
- Design and implement a retention strategy for pipeline artifacts and dependencies (Microsoft Documentation: Set retention policies for builds, releases, and tests)
- Migrate a pipeline from classic to YAML in Azure Pipelines
4. Develop a security and compliance plan (10—15%)
Design and implement authentication and authorization methods
- Choose between Service Principals and Managed Identity (including system-assigned and user-assigned)
- Implement and manage GitHub authentication, including GitHub Apps, GITHUB_TOKEN, and personal access tokens
- Implement and manage Azure DevOps service connections and personal access tokens
- Design and implement permissions and roles in GitHub
- Design and implement permissions and security groups in Azure DevOps
- Recommend appropriate access levels, including stakeholder access in Azure DevOps and outside collaborator access in GitHub
- Configure projects and teams in Azure DevOps
Design and implement a strategy for managing sensitive information in automation
- Implement and manage secrets, keys, and certificates by using Azure Key Vault (Microsoft Documentation: Use Azure Key Vault secrets in Azure Pipelines)
- Implement and manage secrets in GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines
- Design and implement a strategy for managing sensitive files during deployment, including Azure Pipelines secure files (Microsoft Documentation: Azure data security and encryption best practices)
- Design pipelines to prevent leakage of sensitive information (Microsoft Documentation: Design a data loss prevention policy)
Automate security and compliance scanning
- Design a strategy for security and compliance scanning, including dependency, code, secret, and licensing scanning
- Configure Microsoft Defender for Cloud DevOps Security
- Configure GitHub Advanced Security for both GitHub and Azure DevOps
- Integrate GitHub Advanced Security with Microsoft Defender for Cloud
- Automate container scanning, including scanning container images and configuring an action to run CodeQL analysis in a container
- Automate analysis of licensing, vulnerabilities, and versioning of open-source components by using Dependabot alerts
5. Implement an instrumentation strategy (5–10%)
Configure monitoring for a DevOps environment
- Configure Azure Monitor and Log Analytics to integrate with DevOps tools
- Configure collection of telemetry by using Application Insights, VM Insights, Container Insights, Storage Insights, and Network Insights
- Configure monitoring in GitHub, including enabling insights and creating and configuring charts
- Configure alerts for events in GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines (Microsoft Documentation: Azure Monitor Alerts task)
Analyze metrics from instrumentation
- Inspect infrastructure performance indicators, including CPU, memory, disk, and network (Microsoft Documentation: Supported metrics with Azure Monitor)
- Analyze metrics by using collected telemetry, including usage and application performance
- Inspect distributed tracing by using Application Insights
- Interrogate logs using basic Kusto Query Language (KQL) queries (Microsoft Documentation: Log queries in Azure Monitor)
Visit the Official Microsoft Page
In the official Microsoft learning page for the DevOps AZ-400 exam, the candidate will find all the necessary details that they need before applying for the exam. Also. they can find basic exam knowledge, skills and knowledge assessed in the exam, exam requirements, examination study groups, etc.
Furthermore, Whenever there’s a variation in the exam modules or schedule covered, the official page will be one where the relevant information appears for the first time. Most importantly, the links to register the DevOps AZ-400 exam is accessible only from the official page.
Learning Path
The AZ-400 exam helps candidates to design and implement strategies for application code and infrastructure that allow for continuous integration, testing, delivery, monitoring, and feedback. The AZ-400 certification exam tests your knowledge across seven different subject areas.
Excellent Books and Guides
If the candidate gets a certain book for the AZ-400 exam, then they can skip many other alternatives that they have reserved for the AZ-400 exam preparation. It may be a difficult task to find the correct books but you have to do it. To prepare better check the below AZ-400 books:
- Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions: Microsoft Azure (AZ-400) Certification
- Implementing DevOps with Microsoft Azure
Azure White Papers
The candidate can reach various Whitepapers, eBooks, and investigator reports from the Microsoft Azure official page that can help them to identify up to the minute updates on the Azure DevOps and associated technologies. Further, For the AZ-400 exam preparation, they can freely download each reports using Microsoft credentials. Also, the Azure newsletter will be an extra valuable AZ-400 exam preparing resource that the candidate can access from their portal.
Join Training Programs
The candidate can opt for the Microsoft AZ-400 training program. For most of its Azure exams, Microsoft gives instructor-led training programs in joint with their exam partners. Further, the candidate may notice many options for such training. Furthermore, the candidates can opt for the AZ-400 training course which they want. Here, we are providing various training programs by Microsoft.
Course AZ-400T00-A: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps solutions
- Planning for DevOps
- Getting start with Source Control
- Scaling Git for enterprise DevOps
- Consolidating Artifacts & Designing a Dependency Management Strategy
- Implementing Continuous Integration with Azure Pipelines
Study Groups & Forums
Forums and discussion assemblies are some of the efficient ways that can help the AZ-400 exam preparation. The candidate can observe a study group on Microsoft’s official page for AZ-400 itself. In addition, the applicant can find solutions for any of their doubts related to the AZ-400 exam from these forums.
Take Practise Tests
Practise tests are a reliable source to check the preparation level for the real certification like the AZ-400 exam. Furthermore, by practicing the candidate gets accustom to the real exam pattern and hence becomes self-confident enough to pass the exam in the first attempt. There are plenty of vendors who offer free practise tests. So, it is recommend to first try the free AZ-400 sample questions before paying for the full-length practice tests.
