eXAM Z 400 DEV OPS

What is DevOps?

We wrote an article before about this topic that may be useful to answer that question:

• Getting Started with DevOps and SQL Server

Is the exam difficult?

Yes, it covers a lot of topics and requires multiple skills. It is considered very difficult.

Which books would you recommend for this exam?

You can read the following books:

• The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
• DevOps Book.
• Introducing Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2017
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
• The DevOps Adoption Playbook: A Guide to Adopting DevOps in a Multi-Speed IT Enterprise
• DevOps: 2 Manuscripts - DevOps Handbook and DevOps Adoption
• Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale
• NuGet 2 Essentials
• The Kubernetes Book: Version 3 - November 2018
• DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective (SEI Series in Software Engineering)
• Leading the Transformation: Applying Agile and DevOps Principles at Scale
• Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud
• Implementing DevOps with Microsoft Azure
• Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure: Best Practices for DevOps, Data Storage, High Availability, and More (Developer Reference)
• Azure for Architects: Implementing cloud design, DevOps, IoT, and serverless solutions on your public cloud
• Microservices, IoT and Azure: Leveraging DevOps and Microservice Architecture to deliver SaaS Solutions

Are there some courses for this exam?

Yes, the following courses will be useful:

• AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions
• Microsoft Professional Program for DevOps
• DevOps Certification Training Course
• Introduction to NuGet
• DevOps Certifications
• Docker Crash Course for busy DevOps and Developers
• Docker Mastery: The Complete Toolset From a Docker Captain
• Docker and Kubernetes: The Complete Guide
• Azure AKS: Azure Kubernetes Service | Docker Kubernetes

Could you provide some links to study, for this exam?

Yes. The following links will be useful:

Design a DevOps Strategy

• Recommend a migration and consolidation strategy for DevOps tools
  • Azure Artifacts Documentation
  • Get started with NuGet packages in Azure DevOps Services and TFS
  • Azure Artifacts in Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server
  • Getting started with Azure DevOps - BRK2213
  • DevOps Training Workshop
  • Azure DevOps Server Documentation
• Design and implement an Agile work management approach
  • Work in Progress limits
  • Azure Boards Documentation
  • What is Azure Boards?
  • Key concepts and terms used for Azure Boards
  • Connect Azure Boards to GitHub
• Design a quality strategy
  • Exploratory & Manual Testing
  • Shift Left to Make Testing Fast and Reliable
  • Progressive Experimentation with Feature Flags
  • Managing technical debt with SonarQube and Azure DevOps
  • Managing Technical Debt with Azure DevOps and SonarCloud
  • What Team Structure is Right for DevOps to Flourish?
  • 10 ways to build highly effective DevOps teams
  • Scaling Agile - Practices that scale
  • Automated and Manual Testing with Azure Test Plan
  • Developing a Testing Strategy for DevOps Success
  • Azure Test Plans
• Design a secure development process
  • Tutorial: Create a CI/CD pipeline for your existing code by using Azure DevOps Projects
  • Monitoring and diagnostics
  • Simplify, speed, and improve cloud development
  • Learn how to add continuous security validation to your CI/CD pipeline
  • Build and Deployment Automation Case Study for World Wide Time Keeping: Higher Quality and Faster Delivery in an Increasingly Agile World
  • Building cloud apps using the Secure DevOps Kit for Azure
• Design a tool integration strategy
  • Manage users and their access in Azure DevOps
  • Parallel jobs
  • Set up environments to run continuous test tasks with your build tasks.
  • Use all the DevOps services
  • License Azure Artifacts
  • Explore work items with the Test & Feedback extension
  • Which tools and clients connect to Azure DevOps Services and TFS?
  • Data protection overview
  • How we store your credentials for Azure DevOps Services
  • Go on-premises with Team Foundation Server
  • Deploy to Azure
  • Azure DevOps

Implement DevOps Development Processes

• Design a version control strategy
  • Adopt a Git branching strategy
  • Use branches to isolate risk in Team Foundation Version Control
  • Branch folders and files
  • Learn about branching strategies for Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) and how to select an effective strategy
  • View where and when changesets have been merged
  • View the branch hierarchy of a project
  • Associate a file type with a file-comparison tool
• Implement and integrate source control
  • What is source control?
  • Azure Repos
  • Git Repositories
• Implement and manage build infrastructure
  • Build and release agents
  • What are release pipelines?
  • Azure Pipelines
  • Parallel jobs
  • Build and release permissions and security roles
  • About security roles
  • Service Endpoints in Azure DevOps Services
  • Service hooks in Azure DevOps Services
  • Agent pools
• Implement code flow
  • Review code with pull requests
  • Improve pull request descriptions using templates
  • Squash merge pull requests
  • Forks
  • Improve code quality with branch policies
• Implement a mobile DevOps strategy
  • Manage App Center Distribution Groups
  • Using Azure DevOps (VSTS for UI Testing)
  • Development and test
  • View and update work items via the mobile browser
• Managing application configuration and secrets
  • Data protection overview
  • How we store your credentials for Azure DevOps Services
  • About keys, secrets, and certificates
  • Deploy to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using DevOps Projects – VSTS Sprint 134 Update
  • CI-CD for Azure Kubernetes Service AKS using Azure DevOps
  • CI/CD for Containers
  • Pipeline compliance and security validations - Sprint 141 Update

Implement Continuous Integration

• Manage code quality and security policies
  • Continuous integration and deployment
  • Design a CI/CD pipeline using Azure DevOps
  • Review code coverage results
  • Publish Code Coverage Results task
  • Azure Test Plans
  • Deep dive into Azure Test Plans
  • Review test results
  • Analyze test results
  • Test Suites
  • Create test plans and test suites
  • Create manual test cases
  • Run manual tests
  • Use SonarQube with Azure DevOps or Team Foundation Server (TFS) for Java development
  • WhiteSource Bolt in Visual Studio subscriptions
  • Azure DevOps Projects
• Implement a container build strategy
  • Build, test, and push Docker container apps in Azure Pipelines
  • Azure Container Registry Documentation
• Implement a build strategy
  • Build pipeline triggers
  • Building and Deploying your Code with Azure Pipelines
  • Build and release agents
  • Use the visual designer
  • Use the Azure portal
  • How We Deliver Changes to Production

Implement Continuous Delivery

• Design a release strategy
  • What are release pipelines?
  • Release deployment control using gates
  • Release approvals and gates overview
  • Build Quality Indicators Report
  • Azure DevOps Release Notes Generator
  • Release stages, queuing policies, and options
• Set up a release management workflow
  • Release deployment control using gates
  • Run Functional Tests task
  • Run automated tests from test plans
  • What are release pipelines?
  • Release pipelines and release names
  • AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) Security & Identity updates | Best of Microsoft Ignite 2018
  • Build and deploy microservices on Azure Service Fabric Mesh
  • Application Delivery & DevOps practices with Azure Service Fabric
  • Deploy a web app to Azure App Services
  • Define your multi-stage continuous deployment (CD) pipeline
  • Azure Key Vault task
  • Release stages, queuing policies, and options
• Implement an appropriate deployment pattern
  • Blue-Green deployments using Azure Traffic Manager
  • Tutorial: Canary Deployment for Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets
  • Explore how to progressively expose your Azure DevOps extension releases in production to validate, before impacting all users
  • Multiple jobs
  • Deployment groups
  • Deploying a multi-container application to Azure Kubernetes Services
  • Tutorial: Deploy an application with CI/CD to a Service Fabric cluster

Implement Dependency Management

• Design a dependency management strategy
  • Deep dive into Azure Artifacts
  • Getting started with package management using Azure Artifacts
  • Collaborate more and build faster with packages
  • Check in your work to the team's codebase
  • Visual Studio Build task
  • Publish and then download a Universal Package
• Manage security and compliance
  • A Quick Guide to GPLv3
  • Cloud-based tools for software development teams
  • Managing Open-source security and license with WhiteSource
  • Black Duck Hub
  • Black Duck Integrations for Microsoft Visual Studio
  • Secure and share packages using feed permissions

Implement Application Infrastructure

• Design an infrastructure and configuration management strategy
  • Create, host, and share packages with your team
  • Find the DevOps product you need
  • Managing Technical Debt with Azure DevOps and SonarCloud
  • DevOps 101 – Accelerate your application delivery lifecycle
  • Innovate. Deploy. Monitor. Repeat.
  • Reduce Configuration Drift in Your Azure Infrastructure
• Implement Infrastructure as Code
  • Using linked and nested templates when deploying Azure resources
  • Best Practices For Using Azure Resource Manager Templates
  • Azure Resource Manager overview
  • What is Infrastructure as Code?
  • DevOps on Azure – Configuration Management
  • Configuration Management
• Manage Azure Kubernetes Service infrastructure
  • Tutorial: Using Azure DevOps to setup a CI/CD pipeline and deploy to Kubernetes
  • Deploy to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using DevOps Projects – VSTS Sprint 134 Update
  • Deploying a multi-container application to Azure Kubernetes Services
  • Deploy to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using Azure DevOps and Helm
  • Scaling Agile - Practices that scale
• Implement infrastructure compliance and security
  • Microsoft Azure Security and Compliance
  • Secure DevOps Kit for Azure
  • Veracode Azure DevOps Extension
  • Configure servers to a desired state and manage drift
  • Azure Pipelines
  • Use InSpec for compliance automation of your Azure infrastructure

Implement Continuous Feedback

• Recommend and design system feedback mechanisms
  • How to leverage the cloud to improve customer satisfaction
  • Example: How to detect sentiment in Text Analytics
  • Real-time Twitter sentiment analysis in Azure Stream Analytics
  • Provide feedback using the Test & Feedback extension
  • HokeyApp support
  • End-to-end monitoring solutions in Azure for Apps and Infrastructure
  • Add continuous monitoring to your release pipeline
  • What features and services do I get with Azure DevOps Services or TFS?
  • DevOps tool integrations
• Implement process for routing system feedback to development teams
  • Crash Reports
  • Add, rename, and delete team dashboards in Azure DevOps
  • Zendesk with Azure DevOps Services
  • ServiceNow Integration with Azure DevOps (VSTS)
  • New Azure Pipelines announcements – VS Code extension, GitHub Releases, and more
  • Application Insights: Work item integration with Visual Studio Team Services
• Optimize feedback mechanisms
  • Request stakeholder feedback using the Test & Feedback extension
  • Get feedback
  • Provide feedback using the Test & Feedback extension
  • Give feedback using Microsoft Feedback Client
  • Application Telemetry and Monitoring Basics