Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) exam is a certification exam designed for professionals who have expertise in developing and deploying applications on the Microsoft Azure platform. The assessment evaluates your expertise and understanding in domains like continuous integration and deployment, infrastructure represented as code, surveillance and input, adherence to security measures and standards, and the administration and enhancement of Azure assets.
The assessment comprises 40-60 multiple-choice queries that must be finished within a time frame of 150 minutes. Achieving a minimum score of 700 out of 1000 points is necessary to clear the examination successfully. You have the option to either take the exam online or in-person at an authorized testing facility.
Obtaining the AZ-400 certification showcases your capability to conceive, execute, and oversee DevOps methodologies through the utilization of Azure technologies. This credential is particularly suitable for developers, DevOps engineers, and IT experts aiming to validate their proficiencies in Azure DevOps.
Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) Exam Glossary
- Continuous Integration (CI): A practice where developers frequently integrate their code into a shared repository, which triggers automated builds and tests.
- Continuous Delivery (CD): A practice where code changes are automatically built, tested, and deployed to production.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): A practice where infrastructure is defined and managed using code, enabling automated provisioning and management of infrastructure resources.
- Release Pipeline: A series of automated stages that code changes go through before being deployed to production.
- Feedback Loop: Feedback Loop pertains to the ongoing procedure of collecting input from users on a regular basis and utilizing this input to enhance the quality of software development.
- Agile: A project management approach that emphasizes iterative and incremental development, collaboration, and adaptability.
- DevOps: A set of practices that combines development and operations to shorten the systems development life cycle and ensure high-quality software delivery.
- Security and Compliance: The process of ensuring that software development processes and the resulting products comply with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.
- Azure Resource Manager (ARM): A management service that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure subscription.
- Next, Azure DevOps: A set of services that enable teams to plan, develop, test, and deploy software applications. Azure DevOps includes tools for project management, version control, build and release management, and testing.
Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) Exam Guide
- Exam Description: The official Microsoft exam description provides an overview of the exam objectives, skills measured, and registration details. You can find the exam description on the Microsoft website: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-400
- Exam Study Guide: The authorized examination study guide offers a comprehensive breakdown of the exam’s objectives, suggested study materials, and illustrative questions. You can access the exam study guide through the Microsoft website at:
https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE4wGcN - Microsoft Learn: Microsoft Learn provides free online training resources to assist you in preparing for the exam. The Microsoft Learn modules cover all the exam objectives, and you can track your progress as you complete each module. You can find the Microsoft Learn resources for AZ-400 here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/azure-devops
- Exam Practice Tests: Microsoft offers official practice tests for the AZ-400 exam. These simulated assessments are crafted to aid you in gauging your preparedness for the examination while acquainting you with the question formats likely to appear on the test.
You can purchase the official practice tests here. - Exam Registration: You can register for the AZ-400 exam through the Microsoft website. The exam can be attempted in-person at a testing center or online. You can find more information on exam registration here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-400#certification-exams-and-retirement-dates
Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) Exam Tips & Tricks
Here are some tips and tricks to help you prepare for the Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) exam:
- Understand the exam objectives: The first step to exam success is understanding the exam objectives. Review the exam description and study guide to get a clear understanding of what topics will be covered on the exam.
- Take advantage of free training resources: Microsoft provides free online training resources through Microsoft Learn. Take advantage of these resources to gain a better understanding of the topics covered on the exam.
- Practice with hands-on labs: Hands-on labs are a great way to gain practical experience with Azure DevOps. Microsoft provides free hands-on labs through Microsoft Learn. Completing these labs will help you gain a better understanding of how to use Azure DevOps in real-world scenarios.
- Use official practice tests: Microsoft offers official practice tests for the AZ-400 exam. These practice tests are designed to help you evaluate your readiness for the exam and familiarize yourself with the types of questions you can expect to see on the exam.
- Join a study group or online community: Joining a study group or online community can be a great way to get support and advice from other exam takers. You can ask questions, share resources, and get feedback on your study plan.
- Read the exam questions carefully: Read each exam question carefully, and make sure you understand what is being asked before selecting an answer. Don’t rush through the exam, take your time and double-check your answers before submitting.
- Manage your time: The AZ-400 exam is timed, so it’s important to manage your time effectively. Make sure you allocate enough time to each question, and don’t spend too much time on any one question. If you’re unsure of an answer, move on and come back to it later.
Exam: AZ-400 Course Outline
The areas covered in the Microsoft Azure Beta AZ-400 exam recommend the necessary skills and knowledge needed for the operation of a Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert.
Further, the arrangement of domains in the Microsoft Azure Beta AZ-400 exam is rightly perfect for monitoring the technical skills and knowledge of candidates.
The AZ-400 exam topics include:
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)
Preparatory Guide for AZ-400 Beta Exam
If you are an aspirant and belong to the list of applicants who are aspired to the AZ-400 Beta certification, then you should have to 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.
Now, let’s see what these necessary steps are.
Analysing the Objectives
The AZ-400 exam is arranged 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.
So, here are all the Microsoft AZ-400 exam objectives.
- Develop an Instrumentation Strategy (5-10%)
- Developing a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Strategy (5-10%)
- Develop a Security and Compliance Plan (10-15%)
- Manage Source Control (10-15%)
- Facilitate Communication and Collaboration (10-15%)
- Define and Implement Continuous Integration (20-25%)
- Define and Implement a Continuous Delivery and Release Management Strategy (10-15%)
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.
Excellent Books and Guides
If the candidate gets a certain AZ-400 book, 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.
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.
Check out the AZ-400 Study Guide for quick Exam preparation!
Join Training Programs
The candidate can opt for the AZ-400 training program.
For most of its Azure exams, Microsoft gives instructor-led training programs in joint with their exam partners.
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-400T01-A: Implementing DevOps Development Processes
- First of all, Getting started with Source Control
- Secondly, Scaling git for enterprise DevOps
- Subsequently, Implement & Manage Build Infrastructure
- Also, Managing application config & secrets
- Lastly, Implement a mobile DevOps strategy
Course AZ-400T02-A: Implementing Continuous Integration
- First of all, Continuous Integration in an Azure DevOps Pipeline
- Secondly, Managing Code Quality and Security Policies
- Also, Implementing a Container Build Strategy
Course AZ-400T03-A: Implementing Continuous Delivery
- Firstly, Design a Release Strategy
- Secondly, Set up a Release Management Workflow
- Subsequently, Implement an appropriate deployment pattern
Course AZ-400T04-A: Implementing Dependency Management
- First thing first, Designing a Dependency Management Strategy
- Subsequently, Manage security and compliance
Course AZ-400T05-A: Implementing Application Infrastructure
- Infrastructure and Configuration Azure Tools
- Azure Deployment Models and Services
- Create and Manage Kubernetes Service Infrastructure
- Third-Party and Open Source Tools
- Implement Compliance in your Infrastructure
- Course Completion
Course AZ-400T06-A: Implementing Continuous Feedback
- Recommend and design system feedback mechanisms
- Implement a process for routing system feedback to development teams
- Optimize feedback mechanisms
Course AZ-400T07-A: Designing a DevOps Strategy
- Planning for DevOps
- Planning for Quality and Security
- Migrating and Consolidating Artifacts and Tools
The candidate can opt for as many training programs they want.
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 practising the candidate gets accustomed to the real exam pattern and hence become self-confident enough to pass the exam in the first attempt.
There are plenty of vendors who offer free AZ-400 practise tests so it is recommended to first try the AZ-400 exam before paying for the full-length practise tests.
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.
Furthermore, If the candidate is not satisfied with any study group, then they can look for different forums.
In addition, the applicant can find solutions for any of their doubts related to the AZ-400 Beta exam from these forums.
To Conclude!
We have discussed some of the various beneficial Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions Beta AZ-400 exam study materials, strategies and steps that the candidate can apply for their AZ-400 exam preparation.
Official page & documentations are examples of certain irreplaceable resources. Efficient use of such sources in the Microsoft Azure exam preparation is more than enough to obtain good scores in the AZ-400 exam.
So, begin the preparation and try more practice tests. CLICK HERE!
Enhance and Upgrade your AZ-400 skills for better career opportunities. Become a Certified Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert Now!
