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

Practice Exam

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Minimum Entry Requirement

Knowledge and Skills

• Able to operate using computer functions
• Minimum 3 GCE ‘O’ Levels Passes including English or WPL Level 5 (Average of Reading, Listening, Speaking & Writing Scores)

Attitude

• Positive Learning Attitude
• Enthusiastic Learner

Experience

• Minimum of 1 year of working experience.

Target Age Group: 18-65 years old

Minimum Software/Hardware Requirement

Software:

TBD

Hardware: Window or Mac Laptops

• 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

Sanjiv Venkatram: Sanjiv i is an ACTA certified experienced leader with a proven track record in business / finance consulting and in developing i) business intelligence (BI) solutions ii) data analytics/analysis solutions and iii) IOT lead BI solutions. Sanjiv's goal through Prudentia Consulting, is to promote the simple joy and excitement of actively using the Microsoft Platform. He believes that the agility afforded by the Microsoft platform helps businesses get time back for deeper business thinking and to spend more time with their end customers

Sanjiv has rich experiences in diverse/complex high-tech businesses, turn around environments and strategic transformations. His functional expertise is in sales analytics, financial planning and analysis, engineering and program management. He has worked across discrete manufacturing, professional services and higher education verticals. He also has a working knowledge of equities portfolio management within the financial services domain.Sanjiv is the CEO of Prudentia Consulting, an organization committed to promoting the active usage of the Microsoft Platform. Prior to this, he has worked at Microsoft (US & APAC: 9.2 years), Cognizant Tech Solutions (3.3 years), Yazaki North America (8 years) and until recently at Oracle. Here are a few of his BI/analytics projects driven at scale: Built APAC wide BI dashboard using the Power BI umbrella tool set (Power BI online, Power BI desktop and Power Pivot) and a KPI lake (SQL DB), Helped develop key KPIs – identified key KPIs and helped land this in the DB, Developed a budget audit tool that captured budget inputs from a host of countries across the globe, Developed a business unit P&L reporting tool (functional architecture) in Business Objects for the world-wide financial planning and analysis team.

Alec Tan: Alec Tan is a ACTA certified trainer, He has a number of Comptia certifications. Since 2002, starting off from IT technical background to pre-sales, sales account manager, system integration, operate IT retail / repair shop business in Sim Lim Square 2008 ~ 2012, and back to IT industry employment, freelance IT Trainer till present.

Kishan Raaj: Kishan Raaj is a seasoned Data Science and SAP Program Manager with over 15 years of experience, currently leading all end-to-end training and projects for Data Science across Asia at LITHAN, Singapore. With expertise in machine learning, data analytics, and cloud technologies, he is well-versed in techniques such as regression, decision trees, clustering, and text mining. He has hands-on experience with tools like Python, R, Tableau, PowerBI, and Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio.
As an ACTA certified trainer, Kishan has designed and delivered comprehensive courses for SAP and Data Science programs, managing teams and training in multiple countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, and Vietnam. His background in SAP, particularly in S4/HANA and ABAP, combined with his expertise in machine learning libraries such as TensorFlow and Keras, positions him as a highly capable leader in technical education and project management across various industries.

Quah Chee Yong: Quah Chee Yong is a ACTA certified trainer. Quah Chee Yong Chee Yong is an experienced professional who has held various Technical, Operations and Commercial positions across several industriesA firm believer that AI can create a better world, he has equipped himself with the Knowledge and Skills in the fields of Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Cloud Deployment

He has a deep passion for training & facilitating and is currently a Singapore WSQ certified Adult Educator. He particularly enjoys the interactive engagements with his fellow trainers and learners

Peter Cheong :  Peter is a ACLP certied trainer. Specialise In IT related knowlege and conduct IT Training which Include Microsoft Window Server Technology (Wintel) and Linux - Centos/Red Hat. Comptia ,ITIL , Motorola Solution Trunking System and Cisco Networking. I was worked in Motorola Solutions Conduct Motorola Astro 25 Trunking System For Police Force Malaysia (RMPnet),Taiwan Navy, Indonesia METRO POLDA (Police Force). After that Peter Join As IT Group Manager For W-Group which include 17 subsidiaries Companies in Real Estate Developer,Plantation, Building Management Services ,Contruction and also Fiber Opti Service Provider in Sabah,Malaysia.

Alan Tan: Alan Tan is a ACTA certified trainer. Alan Tan hold Masters in Data Science in Singapore University of Technology and Design. He is Microsoft Power Platform PL-900 certified and Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals  Certified DP-900. He have this skills in Microsoft Power Platform development skills such as Powerapps, Power Automate,Power Portal, Power Virtual Agent, Power BI, Sharepoint, Dataverse, etc. For Programming language such as Python and Robotics Process Automation (RPA) development. He is working as a Senior Data Engineer in an MNC.

Bernard Peh: Bernard Peh is a Business Development Director and ACTA certified trainer with over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. He has held key leadership roles and integrated technology, digital marketing, and data science to drive growth in sales, recruitment, and financial planning. As a mentor, Bernard has developed many successful financial professionals who have achieved top industry accolades like TOT, COT, and MDRT.

With deep expertise in data science, Bernard has advised firms and designed training programs for institutions like NTUC Learning Hub. He continues to apply data science to collective funds, achieving exceptional results such as a 400% increase in assets under management, while empowering financial professionals with technology-driven solutions.

Ken Hiong: Ken Hiong is a ACTA certified trainer. Ken has over 20 years of work experience in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, having assumed various functional and managerial roles in sales, marketing, business development, finance, business analysis and planning. With an interest and experience in scripting, Ken has worked on projects using HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, WordPress, MS Office, VBA, Power BI, etc. Notably, Ken is a proven expert Excel user at work who has made efficient many work processes, improved data analysis and enhanced the quality of business planning and reporting for organizations.

Ken graduated with a Pharmacy degree, holds a Master of Business Administration from the National University of Singapore and a Master of Applied Finance from the University of Adelaide. An ardent advocate of lifelong learning, Ken is ACTA trained and seeks to continually upgrade his IT skills through various channels of learning and Microsoft certifications. With MS Office Master qualification, Ken looks forward to assisting individuals and corporations improve their computer skills, productivity and business outcomes.

Audrey Lin : Audrey Lin is a ACTA certified trainer. She is a Business Development Director at Gill Technologies, an IT Consulting and Managed Services Provider focused at servicing SMEs. I'm responsible for the operations, sales, marketing, accounting, and finance functions of the organization. She have 13 years of experience in helping businesses and schools maximize their Return on Investment on IT through the use of the right technology, improving their business processes and increasing user adoption. My expertise is around Microsoft 365, MS Teams and Power BI. To help organizations improve employee productivity with tools from the MS 365 stack, she have delivered several classroom & online-styled end user training sessions to organizations from various industries - real estate, F&B, oil & gas, healthcare, schools, logistics. I have also created multiple customized & on-demand videos that end users can refer to for a quick review. Being certified as a Microsoft Data Analyst Associate, She is proficient at helping businesses gather business insights from their wide array of data. She have been involved in BI Projects with healthcare firms, logistics companies, FIs, etc., starting from the design phase, right through to the daily management of the BI system. Her area of knowledge in managing security and compliance in MS 365 is significant and ever-growing. She have good understanding of the Zero Trust Principle and uses that to improve the IT security posture of her clients. With the support of her engineering team at Gill Technologies, we use cloud-based management tools from MS 365, namely Intune, Endpoint Manager, Defender, etc. to manage our clients' endpoints.

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