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Author: timothywarner

Exam AZ-400_ Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions Crash Course.pdf

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+# Exam AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
+
+*Skills measured as of July 26, 2024*
+
+## Skills at a Glance
+- 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%)
+
+## Table of Contents
+1. [Design and Implement Processes and Communications](#1-design-and-implement-processes-and-communications-1015)
+   - [Design and Implement Traceability and Flow of Work](#design-and-implement-traceability-and-flow-of-work)
+   - [Design and Implement Appropriate Metrics and Queries for DevOps](#design-and-implement-appropriate-metrics-and-queries-for-devops)
+   - [Configure Collaboration and Communication](#configure-collaboration-and-communication)
+
+2. [Design and Implement a Source Control Strategy](#2-design-and-implement-a-source-control-strategy-1015)
+   - [Design and Implement Branching Strategies](#design-and-implement-branching-strategies)
+   - [Configure and Manage Repositories](#configure-and-manage-repositories)
+
+3. [Design and Implement Build and Release Pipelines](#3-design-and-implement-build-and-release-pipelines-5055)
+   - [Design and Implement Package Management Strategy](#design-and-implement-package-management-strategy)
+   - [Design and Implement Testing Strategy](#design-and-implement-testing-strategy)
+   - [Design and Implement Pipelines](#design-and-implement-pipelines)
+   - [Design and Implement Deployments](#design-and-implement-deployments)
+   - [Design and Implement Infrastructure as Code](#design-and-implement-infrastructure-as-code-iac)
+   - [Maintain Pipelines](#maintain-pipelines)
+
+4. [Develop a Security and Compliance Plan](#4-develop-a-security-and-compliance-plan-1015)
+   - [Design and Implement Authentication and Authorization](#design-and-implement-authentication-and-authorization)
+   - [Manage Sensitive Information](#manage-sensitive-information)
+   - [Security and Compliance Scanning](#security-and-compliance-scanning)
+
+5. [Implement an Instrumentation Strategy](#5-implement-an-instrumentation-strategy-510)
+   - [Configure Monitoring](#configure-monitoring)
+   - [Analyze Metrics and Telemetry](#analyze-metrics-and-telemetry)
+
+## 1. 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 GitHub 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 metrics:
+  - Cycle times
+  - Time to recovery
+  - Lead time
+- Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for:
+  - Project planning
+  - Development
+  - Testing
+  - Security
+  - Delivery
+  - Operations
+
+### Configure Collaboration and Communication
+- Document a project by configuring wikis and process diagrams:
+  - Markdown syntax
+  - Mermaid syntax
+- Configure release documentation:
+  - Release notes
+  - API documentation
+- Automate creation of documentation from Git history
+- Configure integration:
+  - Using webhooks
+  - Between Azure Boards and GitHub repositories
+  - Between GitHub/Azure DevOps and Microsoft Teams
+
+## 2. Design and Implement a Source Control Strategy (10–15%)
+
+### Design and Implement Branching Strategies
+- Design a branch strategy:
+  - Trunk-based
+  - Feature branch
+  - Release branch
+- Design and implement pull request workflow using:
+  - Branch policies
+  - Branch protections
+- Implement branch merging restrictions using:
+  - Branch policies
+  - Branch protections
+
+### Configure and Manage Repositories
+- Design and implement strategy for managing large files:
+  - Git Large File Storage (LFS)
+  - git-fat
+- Design repository optimization strategy:
+  - Scaling with Scalar
+  - Cross-repository sharing
+- Configure repository management:
+  - Permissions
+  - Tags for organization
+  - Data recovery using Git commands
+  - Data removal from source control
+
+## 3. Design and Implement Build and Release Pipelines (50–55%)
+
+### Design and Implement Package Management Strategy
+- Recommend package management tools:
+  - GitHub Packages registry
+  - Azure Artifacts
+- Design and implement:
+  - Package feeds and views for local/upstream packages
+  - Dependency versioning strategy (SemVer, CalVer)
+  - Versioning strategy for pipeline artifacts
+
+### Design and Implement Testing Strategy
+- Design and implement:
+  - Quality and release gates
+  - Security and governance
+- Design comprehensive testing strategy:
+  - Local tests
+  - Unit tests
+  - Integration tests
+  - Load tests
+- Implement pipeline testing:
+  - Configure test tasks
+  - Configure test agents
+  - Test results integration
+  - Code coverage analysis
+
+### Design and Implement Pipelines
+- Select deployment automation solution:
+  - GitHub Actions
+  - Azure Pipelines
+- Design and implement runner/agent infrastructure:
+  - Cost considerations
+  - Tool selection
+  - Licensing
+  - Connectivity
+  - Maintainability
+- Pipeline development and integration:
+  - GitHub repositories with Azure Pipelines
+  - Trigger rules
+  - YAML pipelines
+  - Job execution order (parallelism, multi-stage)
+- Complex pipeline scenarios:
+  - Hybrid pipelines
+  - VM templates
+  - Self-hosted runners/agents
+- Pipeline elements:
+  - YAML templates
+  - Task groups
+  - Variables and variable groups
+  - Checks and approvals using YAML-based environments
+
+### Design and Implement Deployments
+- Design deployment strategies:
+  - Blue-green
+  - Canary
+  - Ring
+  - Progressive exposure
+  - Feature flags
+  - A/B testing
+- Implementation considerations:
+  - Dependency deployment ordering
+  - Downtime minimization (VIP swap, load balancing)
+  - Rolling deployments
+  - Deployment slots
+  - Hotfix path planning
+  - Resiliency strategy
+- Feature implementation:
+  - Feature flags with Azure App Configuration
+  - Container/binary/script deployment
+  - Database task deployment
+
+### Design and Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
+- Configuration management:
+  - Technology recommendations
+  - Strategy implementation
+- IaC strategy:
+  - Source control
+  - Testing automation
+  - Deployment automation
+- Environment configuration:
+  - Azure Automation State Configuration
+  - Azure Resource Manager
+  - Bicep
+  - Azure Automanage Machine Configuration
+  - Azure Deployment Environments
+
+### Maintain Pipelines
+- Monitoring and optimization:
+  - Pipeline health (failure rate, duration, flaky tests)
+  - Cost optimization
+  - Time optimization
+  - Performance optimization
+  - Reliability optimization
+  - Concurrency optimization
+- Management:
+  - Retention strategy for artifacts/dependencies
+  - Migration from classic to YAML in Azure Pipelines
+
+## 4. Develop a Security and Compliance Plan (10–15%)
+
+### Design and Implement Authentication and Authorization
+- Identity management:
+  - Service Principals vs Managed Identity
+  - GitHub authentication (Apps, GITHUB_TOKEN, PATs)
+  - Azure DevOps connections and tokens
+- Permission management:
+  - GitHub roles and permissions
+  - Azure DevOps security groups
+  - Access levels (stakeholder, collaborator)
+  - Project/team configuration
+
+### Manage Sensitive Information
+- Secrets management:
+  - Azure Key Vault integration
+  - GitHub Actions secrets
+  - Azure Pipelines secrets
+  - Sensitive file deployment
+  - Pipeline security for sensitive data
+
+### Security and Compliance Scanning
+- Scanning strategy:
+  - Dependency scanning
+  - Code scanning
+  - Secret scanning
+  - License scanning
+- Security tooling:
+  - Microsoft Defender for Cloud DevOps
+  - GitHub Advanced Security
+  - Container scanning
+  - CodeQL analysis
+  - Dependabot alerts
+
+## 5. Implement an Instrumentation Strategy (5–10%)
+
+### Configure Monitoring
+- DevOps monitoring:
+  - Azure Monitor
+  - Log Analytics integration
+- Telemetry collection:
+  - Application Insights
+  - VM Insights
+  - Container Insights
+  - Storage Insights
+  - Network Insights
+- GitHub monitoring:
+  - Insights configuration
+  - Chart creation
+  - Alerts for Actions and Pipelines
+
+### Analyze Metrics and Telemetry
+- Performance monitoring:
+  - CPU, memory, disk, network indicators
+  - Usage metrics
+  - Application performance
+  - Distributed tracing with Application Insights
+- Log analysis:
+  - Basic KQL queries