AZ-400 Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions Exam Prep

LU1 Get started on a DevOps transformation journey

Topic 1 Introduction to DevOps

• What is DevOps?
• Explore the DevOps journey
• Identify transformation teams
• Explore shared goals and define timelines

Topic 2 Choose the right project

• Explore greenfield and brownfield projects
• Decide when to use greenfield and brownfield projects
• Decide when to use systems of record versus systems of engagement
• Identify groups to minimize initial resistance
• Identify project metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs)

Topic 3 Describe team structures

• Explore agile development practices
• Explore principles of agile development
• Define organization structure for agile practices
• Explore ideal DevOps team members
• Enable in-team and cross-team collaboration
• Select tools and processes for agile practices

Topic 4 Choose the DevOps tools

• What is Azure DevOps?
• What is GitHub?
• Explore an authorization and access strategy
• Migrate or integrate existing work management tools
• Migrate or integrate existing test management tools
• Design a license management strategy

Topic 5 Plan Agile with GitHub Projects and Azure Boards

• Introduction to GitHub Projects and Project boards
• Introduction to Azure Boards
• Link GitHub to Azure Boards
• Configure GitHub Projects
• Manage work with GitHub Project boards
• Customize Project views
• Collaborate using team discussions
• Agile Plan and Portfolio Management with Azure Boards

Topic 6 Introduction to source control

• Explore DevOps foundational practices
• What is source control?
• Explore benefits of source control
• Explore best practices for source control

Topic 7 Describe types of source control systems

• Understand centralized source control
• Understand distributed source control
• Explore Git and Team Foundation Version Control
• Examine and choose Git
• Understand objections to using Git
• Describe working with Git locally

Topic 8 Work with Azure Repos and GitHub

• Introduction to Azure Repos
• Introduction to GitHub
• Migrate from TFVC to Git
• Use GIT-TFS
• Develop online with GitHub Codespaces

LU2 Development for enterprise DevOps

Topic 9 Structure your Git Repo

• Explore monorepo versus multiple repos
• Implement a change log

Topic 10 Manage Git branches and workflows

• Explore branch workflow types
• Explore feature branch workflow
• Explore Git branch model for continuous delivery
• Explore GitHub flow
• Explore fork workflow
• Version Control with Git in Azure Repos

Topic 11 Collaborate with pull requests in Azure Repos

• Collaborate with pull requests
• Exercise - Azure Repos collaborating with pull requests
• Examine GitHub mobile for pull request approvals

Topic 12 Identify technical debt

• Examine code quality
• Examine complexity and quality metrics
• Introduction to technical debt
• Measure and manage technical debt
• Integrate other code quality tools
• Plan effective code reviews

Topic 13 Explore Git hooks

• Introduction to Git hooks
• Implement Git hooks

Topic 14 Plan foster inner source

• Explore foster inner source
• Implement the fork workflow
• Describe inner source with forks

Topic 15 Manage Git repositories

• Work with large repositories
• Purge repository data
• Manage releases with GitHub Repos
• Automate release notes with GitHub

LU3 Implement CI with Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions

Topic 16 Explore Azure Pipelines

• Explore the concept of pipelines in DevOps
• Describe Azure Pipelines
• Understand Azure Pipelines key terms

Topic 17 Manage Azure Pipeline agents and pools

• Choose between Microsoft-hosted versus self-hosted agents
• Explore job types
• Introduction to agent pools
• Explore predefined agent pool
• Understand typical situations for agent pools
• Communicate with Azure Pipelines
• Communicate to deploy to target servers
• Examine other considerations
• Describe security of agent pools
• Configure agent pools and understanding pipeline styles

Topic 18 Describe pipelines and concurrency

• Understand parallel jobs
• Estimate parallel jobs
• Describe Azure Pipelines and open-source projects
• Explore Azure Pipelines and Visual Designer
• Describe Azure Pipelines and YAML

Topic 19 Explore continuous integration

• Introduction to continuous integration
• Learn the four pillars of continuous integration
• Explore benefits of continuous integration
• Describe build properties
• Enable Continuous Integration with Azure Pipelines

Topic 20 Implement a pipeline strategy

• Configure agent demands
• Implement multi-agent builds
• Explore source control types supported by Azure Pipeline

Topic 21 Integrate with Azure Pipelines

• Describe the anatomy of a pipeline
• Understand the pipeline structure
• Detail templates
• Explore YAML resources
• Use multiple repositories in your pipeline

Topic 22 Introduction to GitHub Actions

• What are Actions?
• Explore Actions flow
• Understand workflows
• Describe standard workflow syntax elements
• Explore events
• Explore jobs
• Explore runners
• Examine release and test an action

Topic 23 Learn continuous integration with GitHub Actions

• Describe continuous integration with actions
• Examine environment variables
• Share artifacts between jobs
• Examine Workflow badges
• Describe best practices for creating actions
• Mark releases with Git tags
• Create encrypted secrets
• Use secrets in a workflow
• Implement GitHub Actions for CI/CD

Topic 24 Design a container build strategy

• Examine structure of containers
• Work with Docker containers
• Understand Dockerfile core concepts
• Examine multi-stage dockerfiles
• Examine considerations for multiple stage builds
• Explore Azure container-related services
• Deploy Docker containers to Azure App Service web apps

LU4 Design and implement a release strategy

Topic 25 Introduction to continuous delivery

• Explore traditional IT development cycle
• What is continuous delivery?
• Move to continuous delivery
• Understand releases and deployments
• Understand release process versus release

Topic 26 Create a release pipeline

• Describe Azure DevOps release pipeline capabilities
• Explore release pipelines
• Explore artifact sources
• Choose the appropriate artifact source
• Exercise - select an artifact source
• Examine considerations for deployment to stages
• Exercise - set up stages
• Explore build and release tasks
• Explore custom build and release tasks
• Explore release jobs
• Configure Pipelines as Code with YAML

Topic 27 Explore release recommendations

• Understand the delivery cadence and three types of triggers
• Exercise - select your delivery and deployment cadence
• Explore release approvals
• Exercise - set up manual approvals
• Explore release gates
• Use release gates to protect quality
• Control Deployments using Release Gates

Topic 28 Provision and test environments

• Provision and configure target environments
• Exercise - set up service connections
• Configure automated integration and functional test automation
• Understand Shift-left
• Set up and run availability tests
• Explore Azure Load Testing
• Set up and run functional tests

Topic 29 Manage and modularize tasks and templates

• Examine task groups
• Exercise - create and manage task groups
• Explore variables in release pipelines
• Understand variable groups
• Exercise - create and manage variable groups

Topic 30 Automate inspection of health

• Automate inspection of health
• Explore events and notifications
• Explore service hooks
• Exercise - set up service hooks to monitor the pipeline
• Configure Azure DevOps notifications
• Configure GitHub notifications
• Explore how to measure quality of your release process
• Examine release notes and documentation
• Examine considerations for choosing release management tools
• Explore common release management tools

LU5 Implement a secure continuous deployment using Azure Pipelines

Topic 31 Introduction to deployment patterns

• Explore microservices architecture
• Examine classical deployment patterns
• Understand modern deployment patterns

Topic 32 Implement blue-green deployment and feature toggles

• What is blue-green deployment?
• Explore deployment slots
• Exercise - set up a blue-green deployment
• Introduction to feature toggles
• Describe feature toggle maintenance

Topic 33 Implement canary releases and dark launching

• Explore canary releases
• Examine Traffic Manager
• Understand dark launching

Topic 34 Implement A/B testing and progressive exposure deployment

• What is A/B testing?
• Explore CI-CD with deployment rings
• Exercise - Ring-based deployment

Topic 35 Integrate with identity management systems

• Integrate GitHub with single sign-on (SSO)
• Explore service principals
• Explore Managed Identity

Topic 36 Manage application configuration data

• Rethink application configuration data
• Explore separation of concerns
• Understand external configuration store patterns
• Introduction to Azure App Configuration
• Examine Key-value pairs
• Examine App configuration feature management
• Integrate Azure Key Vault with Azure Pipelines
• Manage secrets, tokens and certificates
• Examine DevOps inner and outer loop
• Integrate Azure Key Vault with Azure DevOps
• Enable Dynamic Configuration and Feature Flags

LU6 Manage infrastructure as code using Azure and DSC

Topic 37 Explore infrastructure as code and configuration management

• Explore environment deployment
• Examine environment configuration
• Understand imperative versus declarative configuration
• Understand idempotent configuration

Topic 38 Create Azure resources using Azure Resource Manager templates

• Why use Azure Resource Manager templates?
• Explore template components
• Manage dependencies
• Modularize templates
• Manage secrets in templates
• Deployments using Azure Bicep templates

Topic 39 Create Azure resources by using Azure CLI

• What is Azure CLI?
• Work with Azure CLI
• Exercise - Run templates using Azure CLI

Topic 40 Explore Azure Automation with DevOps

• Create automation accounts
• What is a runbook?
• Understand automation shared resources
• Explore runbook gallery
• Examine webhooks
• Explore source control integration
• Explore PowerShell workflows
• Create a workflow
• Explore hybrid management
• Exercise - Create and run a workflow runbook
• Examine checkpoint and parallel processing
• Topic 35 Implement Desired State Configuration (DSC)
• Understand configuration drift
• Explore Desired State Configuration (DSC)
• Explore Azure Automation State configuration (DSC)
• Examine DSC configuration file
• Exercise - Import and compile
• Exercise - Onboard machines for management
• Explore hybrid management
• Implement DSC and Linux Automation on Azure

Topic 41 Implement Bicep

• What is Bicep?
• Install Bicep
• Exercise - Create Bicep templates
• Understand Bicep file structure and syntax
• Exercise - Deploy a Bicep file from Azure Pipelines
• Exercise - Deploy a Bicep file from GitHub workflows

LU7 Design and implement a dependency management strategy

Topic 42 Explore package dependencies

• What is dependency management?
• Describe elements of a dependency management strategy
• Identify dependencies
• Understand source and package componentization
• Decompose your system
• Scan your codebase for dependencies

Topic 43 Understand package management

• Explore packages
• Understand package feeds
• Explore package feed managers
• Explore common public package sources
• Explore self-hosted and SaaS based package sources
• Consume packages
• Introduction to Azure Artifacts
• Publish packages
• Package management with Azure Artifacts

Topic 44 Migrate consolidating and secure artifacts

• Identify existing artifact repositories
• Migrate and integrating artifact repositories
• Secure access to package feeds
• Examine roles
• Examine permissions
• Examine authentication

Topic 45 Implement a versioning strategy

• Understand versioning of artifacts
• Explore semantic versioning
• Examine release views
• Promote packages
• Exercise - Promote a package
• Explore best practices for versioning
• Exercise - Push from the pipeline

Topic 46 Introduction to GitHub Packages

• Publish packages
• Install a package
• Delete and restore a package
• Explore package access control and visibility

LU8 Implement continuous feedback

Topic 47 Implement tools to track usage and flow

• Understand the inner loop
• Introduction to continuous monitoring
• Explore Azure Monitor and Log Analytics
• Examine Kusto Query Language (KQL)
• Explore Application Insights
• Implement Application Insights
• Exercise - Add Application Insights to an ASP.NET core application
• Monitor application performance with Application Insights

Topic 48 Develop monitor and status dashboards

• Explore Azure Dashboards
• Examine view designer in Azure Monitor
• Explore Azure Monitor workbooks
• Explore Power BI
• Build your own custom application

Topic 49 Share knowledge within teams

• Share acquired knowledge within development teams
• Introduction to Azure DevOps project wikis
• Integrate with Azure Boards
• Share team knowledge using Azure Project Wiki

Topic 50 Design processes to automate application analytics

• Explore rapid responses and augmented search
• Integrate telemetry
• Examine monitoring tools and technologies

Topic 51 Manage alerts, blameless retrospectives and a just culture

• Examine when get a notification
• Explore how to fix it
• Explore smart detection notifications
• Improve performance
• Understand server response time degradation
• Reduce meaningless and non-actionable alerts
• Examine blameless retrospective
• Develop a just culture

LU9 Implement security and validate code bases for compliance

Topic 52 Introduction to Secure DevOps

• Describe SQL injection attack
• Understand DevSecOps
• Explore Secure DevOps Pipeline
• Explore key validation points
• Explore continuous security validation
• Understand threat modeling
• Exercise threat modeling

Topic 53 Implement open-source software

• Explore how software is built
• What is open-source software
• Explore corporate concerns with open-source software components
• Introduction to open-source licenses
• Explore common open-source licenses
• Examine license implications and ratings

Topic 54 Software Composition Analysis

• Inspect and validate code bases for compliance
• Explore software composition analysis (SCA)
• Integrate Mend with Azure Pipelines
• Implement GitHub Dependabot alerts and security updates
• Integrate software composition analysis checks into pipelines
• Examine tools for assess package security and license rate
• Interpret alerts from scanner tools
• Implement security and compliance in an Azure Pipeline

Topic 55 Static analyzers

• Explore SonarCloud
• Explore CodeQL in GitHub
• Manage technical debt with SonarCloud and Azure DevOps

Topic 56 OWASP and Dynamic Analyzers

• Plan Implement OWASP Secure Coding Practices
• Explore OWASP ZAP penetration test
• Explore OWASP ZAP results and bugs

Topic 57 Security Monitoring and Governance

• Implement pipeline security
• Explore Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Examine Microsoft Defender for Cloud usage scenarios
• Explore Azure Policy
• Understand policies
• Explore initiatives
• Explore resource locks
• Explore Azure Blueprints
• Understand Microsoft Defender for Identity

• DevOps Engineer
• Software Developer
• Systems Administrator
• IT Project Manager
• Cloud Solutions Architect
• Infrastructure Engineer
• Release Manager
• Operations Manager
• Security Engineer
• Application Developer
• Quality Assurance Engineer
• IT Operations Analyst
• Site Reliability Engineer
• Technical Architect
• Full Stack Developer

Ajay B :  Ajay is a ACLP certied trainer. Ajay is a vendor neutral cloud consultant and training expert on Cloud , with several Private cloud deployments in India and cloud migration knowledge .He is a Cloud and DevOps enthusiast with consulting, deployment and training expertise on OpenStack, AWS, Google Cloud ,Azure, Jenkins, and Docker

Ajay has 18 + years Industry experience as IT entrepreneur and 9 years in Cloud and Devops technical consulting, implementation and training area, currently working in capacity of Vice President – Cloud and Devops services handling singapore and India

Anil Bidari: Anil  is a ACLP certified trainer. He is an Enterprise Cloud and DevOps Consultant , responsible for  helping clients to move Virtual data centre to Private Cloud based on OpenStack and Public Cloud ( AWS, Azure and Google cloud) . Consulting and training experience on Devops tool chain like github , Jenkins, Sonarqube, Docker & kubernetes, Cloud foundry, Openshift, Ansible and SaltStack. Lot of my Role is involved design and implementation of a solution and training