AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions
Before joining Sourced Group, I was using Azure DevOps (well Azure Pipelines to be specific) as my CI/CD tool and it was my first. Since then, I’ve used Jenkins at my current client. Looking back at both experiences, I really miss Azure DevOps.
I had a leftover exam voucher, so I decided to get back in the Azure DevOps game and freshen up.
Core Objectives
AZ-400 is a much broader exam than previous ones because it is a capstone; you need prior knowledge of Azure (Admin or Developer level) in addition to Azure DevOps.
- Design a DevOps strategy (20–25%)
- Implement DevOps development processes (20–25%)
- Implement continuous integration (10–15%)
- Implement continuous delivery (10–15%)
- Implement dependency management (5–10%)
- Implement application infrastructure (15–20%)
- Implement continuous feedback (10–15%)
Exam Preparation
Since it had been over 8 months since I touched Azure DevOps, I decided to prepare with Hands-on labs. I took advantage of the Microsoft Learn platform which is pretty awesome. I found the DevOps track very well done and expanded my horizons.
In addition to Microsoft Learn, I used:
- Pluralsight Azure Devops Learning Track — I listed on 1.5x speed and skipped a lot of content since it does get repetitive across courses.
- Azure DevOps Labs — Microsoft has another set of labs which are not integrated into MS Learn (a shame!). The labs weren’t as good and I mostly skimmed through the content instead of doing.
- Stanislas Quastana Slide Decks — Stanislas creates very good preparation slide decks for many MS exams.
The above sources really opened my horizons to CI/CD different stages; especially on integrating security scans and performance testing. Azure DevOps plugin ecosystem is huge and keeps growing (I even supported a few plugins in a past life). What I really like was looking at tools like Cyberduck, Whitesource, JMeter (Run a performance test, run an XSLT transformation on the XML output and then publish the results and possibly fail the deployment if performance does not meet certain thresholds), etc.
The Exam
The exam format is very similar to previous exams:
- Few forward only questions; can’t modify previous answer
- Multiple-choice / drag and drop / order steps
- Lab
- 2 Case Studies
Overall, I found the exam overly easy. The resources I used were more than sufficient + prior experience to complete the exam. The lab portion was rather disappointing. The lab questions were Azure only and not Azure DevOps. Each lab question was pretty easy and even if you had not worked with the resource involved, you could find your way to accomplish the task. The scope of most labs questions was to enable or configure one aspect of a resource. In total, there were 11 lab questions.
I pleasantly surprised that the exam had quite a few questions on docker and AKS which I have been focusing on at my current client lately.
All in all, it took me just over an hour to write the exam
Conclusion
While the exam was pretty easy, I really enjoyed preparing for it. The labs exposed me to many tools I had not played or used before. The labs really need to be changed to focus on Azure DevOps labs or just add a 2nd set of labs. For a capstone exam, the bar should be raised!