AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solution

In an increasingly interconnected and digitized world, a fluent understanding of DevOps techniques and solutions has become paramount for IT professionals. Microsoft Azure is one of the most in-demand and widely used platforms today, with Azure DevOps being at the forefront of cloud-based DevOps solutions. This practice test is designed to help students gain and sharpen their skills in the AZ-400 Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions, specifically addressing five critical areas: configuring processes and communications; designing and implementing source control; building and release pipelines; developing security and compliance plans; and implementing an instrumentation strategy.

Each section of the test includes a set of scenario-based questions, simulations, and multiple-choice tests that challenge students to apply their knowledge and practical problem-solving skills. Exam candidates will benefit from valuable insights and feedback on their exam readiness, while those seeking to increase their DevOps knowledge will gain a solid foundation in the content.

In addition to providing critical test-taking skills, this practice test includes detailed explanations, feedback, and references that give students a deeper understanding of DevOps principles and best practices. At the end of the test, students will come away with a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, better problem-solving skills, and more confidence in their ability to master AZ-400 DevOps solutions.

Skills measured on Microsoft AZ-400 Exam

• Design and implement processes and communications (10–15%)

• Design and implement a source control strategy (10–15%)

• Design and implement build and release pipelines (50–55%)

• Develop a security and compliance plan (10–15%)

• Implement an instrumentation strategy (5–10%)

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

• Configure release documentation, including release notes and API documentation

• Automate creation of documentation from Git history

• Configure integration by using webhooks

• Configure integration between GitHub or Azure DevOps and Microsoft Teams

Design and implement a source control strategy (10–15%)

Design and implement branching strategies for the source code

• Design a branch strategy, including trunk-based, feature branch, and release branch

• Design and implement a pull request workflow by using branch policies and branch protections

• Implement branch merging restrictions by using branch policies and branch protections

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

• Configure tags to organize the source control repository

• Recover specific data by using Git commands

• Remove specific data from source control

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

• Design and implement a dependency versioning strategy for code assets and packages, including semantic versioning and date-based

• Design and implement a versioning strategy for pipeline artifacts

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

• 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

• Develop pipelines by using YAML

• Design and implement a strategy for job execution order, including parallelism and multi-stage pipelines

• 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

• Design and implement checks and approvals by using YAML environments

Design and implement deployments

• Design a deployment strategy, including blue-green, canary, ring, progressive exposure, feature flags, and A/B testing

• Design a pipeline to ensure that dependency deployments are reliably ordered

• Plan for minimizing downtime during deployments by using virtual IP address (VIP) swap, load balancing, rolling deployments, and deployment slots

• Design a hotfix path plan for responding to high-priority code fixes

• Design and implement a resiliency strategy for deployment

• Implement feature flags by using Azure App Configuration Feature Manager

• Implement application deployment by using containers, binaries, and scripts

• Implement a deployment that includes database tasks

Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC)

• Recommend a configuration management technology for application infrastructure

• Implement a configuration management strategy for application infrastructure

• Define an IaC strategy, including source control and automation of testing and deployment

• 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

• Optimize a pipeline for cost, time, performance, and reliability

• Optimize pipeline concurrency for performance and cost

• Design and implement a retention strategy for pipeline artifacts and dependencies

• Migrate a pipeline from classic to YAML in Azure Pipelines

Develop a security and compliance plan (10–15%)

Design and implement authentication and authorization methods

• Choose between Service Principals and Managed Identity

• 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

• 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

• Design pipelines to prevent leakage of sensitive information

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

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

Analyze metrics from instrumentation

• Inspect infrastructure performance indicators, including CPU, memory, disk, and network

• 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

With its focus on real-world scenarios and hands-on application, this test is also an excellent resource for professionals wanting to master DevOps techniques and methodologies. The course is self-paced, allowing students to work through the content at their own pace and access the materials conveniently from anywhere in the world. And with a talented community of students and instructors, learners have access to a broad range of experiences, disciplinary expertise, and networking opportunities. Enroll today and take a significant step towards mastering AZ-400 DevOps Solutions!