AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions

Course Outline

Module 1: Planning for DevOps

Lessons

• Transformation Planning
• Project Selection
• Team Structures
• Migrating to Azure DevOps

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Plan for the transformation with shared goals and timelines
• Select a project and identify project metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
• Create a team and agile organizational structure
• Design a tool integration strategy
• Design a license management strategy (e.g. Azure DevOps and GitHub users)
• Design a strategy for end-to-end traceability from work items to working software
• Design an authentication and access strategy
• Design a strategy for integrating on-premises and cloud resources

Module 2: Getting started with Source Control

Lessons

• What is Source Control
• Benefits of Source Control
• Types of Source Control Systems
• Introduction to Azure Repos
• Introduction to GitHub
• Migrating from Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) to Git in Azure Repos

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe the benefits of using Source Control
• Describe Azure Repos and GitHub
• Migrate from TFVC to Git

Module 3: Managing Technical Debt

Lessons

• Identifying Technical Debt
• Knowledge Sharing within Teams
• Modernizing Development Environments with Codespaces

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Manage code quality including technical debt SonarCloud, and other tooling solutions
• Build organizational knowledge on code quality

Module 4: Working with Git for Enterprise DevOps

Lessons

• How to Structure Your Git Repo
• Git Branching Workflows
• Collaborating with Pull Requests in Azure Repos
• Why Care About Git Hooks
• Fostering Inner Source
• Managing Git Repositories

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain how to structure Git repos
• Describe Git branching workflows
• Leverage pull requests for collaboration and code reviews
• Leverage Git hooks for automation
• Use Git to foster inner source across the organization

Module 5: Configuring Azure Pipelines

Lessons

• The Concept of Pipelines in DevOps
• Azure Pipelines
• Evaluate use of Hosted versus Self-Hosted Agents
• Agent Pools
• Pipelines and Concurrency
• Azure DevOps and Open-Source Projects (Public Projects)
• Azure Pipelines YAML versus Visual Designer

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain the role of Azure Pipelines and its components
• Configure Agents for use in Azure Pipelines

Module 6: Implementing Continuous Integration using Azure Pipelines

Lessons

• Continuous Integration Overview
• Implementing a Build Strategy
• Integration with Azure Pipelines
• Integrating External Source Control with Azure Pipelines
• Set Up Self-Hosted Agents

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain why continuous integration matters
• Implement continuous integration using Azure Pipelines

Module 7: Managing Application Configuration and Secrets

Lessons

• Introduction to Security
• Implement a Secure Development Process
• Rethinking Application Configuration Data
• Manage Secrets, Tokens, and Certificates
• Integrating with Identity Management Systems
• Implementing Application Configuration

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Manage application configuration and secrets
• Integrate Azure Key Vault with a pipeline

Module 8: Implementing Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions

Lessons

• GitHub Actions
• Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions
• Securing Secrets for GitHub Actions

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Create and work with GitHub Actions and Workflows
• Implement Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions

Module 9: Designing and Implementing a Dependency Management Strategy

Lessons

• Packaging Dependencies
• Package Management
• Migrating and Consolidating Artifacts
• Package Security
• Implementing a Versioning Strategy

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Recommend artifact management tools and practices
• Abstract common packages to enable sharing and reuse
• Migrate and consolidate artifacts
• Migrate and integrate source control measures

Module 10: Designing a Release Strategy

Lessons

• Introduction to Continuous Delivery
• Release Strategy Recommendations
• Building a High-Quality Release pipeline
• Choosing the Right Release Management Tool

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Differentiate between a release and a deployment
• Define the components of a release pipeline
• Explain things to consider when designing your release strategy
• Classify a release versus a release process, and outline how to control the quality of both
• Describe the principle of release gates and how to deal with release notes and documentation
• Choose a release management tool

Module 11: Implementing Continuous Deployment using Azure Pipelines

Lessons

• Create a Release Pipeline
• Provision and Configure Environments
• Manage and Modularize Tasks and Templates
• Configure Automated Integration and Functional Test Automation
• Automate Inspection of Health

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain the terminology used in Azure DevOps and other Release Management Tooling
• Describe what a Build and Release task is, what it can do, and some available deployment tasks
• Explain why you sometimes need multiple release jobs in one release pipeline
• Differentiate between multi-agent and multi-configuration release job
• Use release variables and stage variables in your release pipeline
• Deploy to an environment securely using a service connection
• List the different ways to inspect the health of your pipeline and release by using alerts, service hooks, and reports

Module 12: Implementing an Appropriate Deployment Pattern

Lessons

• Introduction to Deployment Patterns
• Implement Blue Green Deployment
• Feature Toggles
• Canary Releases
• Dark Launching
• AB Testing
• Progressive Exposure Deployment

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe deployment patterns
• Implement Blue Green Deployment
• Implement Canary Release
• Implement Progressive Exposure Deployment

Module 13: Managing Infrastructure and Configuration using Azure Tools

Lessons

• Infrastructure as Code and Configuration Management
• Create Azure Resources using ARM Templates
• Create Azure Resources using Azure CLI
• Azure Automation with DevOps
• Desired State Configuration (DSC)

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Apply infrastructure and configuration as code principles.
• Deploy and manage infrastructure using Microsoft automation technologies such as ARM templates, PowerShell, and Azure CLI

Module 14: Third Party Infrastructure as Code Tools Available with Azure

Lessons

• Chef
• Puppet
• Ansible
• Terraform

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Deploy and configure infrastructure using 3rd party tools and services with Azure, such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Terraform

Module 15: Managing Containers using Docker

Lessons

• Implementing a Container Build Strategy
• Implementing Docker Multi-Stage Builds

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Implement a container strategy including how containers are different from virtual machines and how microservices use containers
• Implement containers using Docker
• Implement Docker multi-stage builds

Module 16: Creating and Managing Kubernetes Service Infrastructure

Lessons

• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Kubernetes Tooling
• Integrating AKS with Pipelines

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Deploy and configure a Managed Kubernetes cluster

Module 17: Implementing Feedback for Development Teams

Lessons

• Implement Tools to Track System Usage, Feature Usage, and Flow
• Implement Routing for Mobile Application Crash Report Data
• Develop Monitoring and Status Dashboards
• Integrate and Configure Ticketing Systems

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Implement tools to track system usage, feature usage, and flow
• Configure crash report integration for client applications
• Implement routing for client application crash report data
• Develop monitoring and status dashboards
• Integrate and configure ticketing systems with development team’s work management

Module 18: Implementing System Feedback Mechanisms

Lessons

• Site Reliability Engineering
• Design Practices to Measure End-User Satisfaction
• Design Processes to Capture and Analyze User Feedback
• Design Processes to Automate Application Analytics
• Managing Alerts
• Blameless Retrospectives and a Just Culture

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Define Site Reliability Engineering
• Design processes to measure end-user satisfaction and analyze user feedback
• Design processes to automate application analytics
• Manage alerts and reduce meaningless and non-actionable alerts
• Carry out blameless retrospectives and create a just culture

Module 19: Implementing Security in DevOps Projects

Lessons

• Security in the Pipeline
• Azure Security Center

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Define an infrastructure and configuration strategy and appropriate toolset for a release pipeline and application infrastructure
• Implement compliance and security in your application infrastructure

Module 20: Validating Code Bases for Compliance

Lessons

• Open-Source Software
• Managing Security and Compliance Policies
• Integrating License and Vulnerability Scans

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe the potential challenges with integrating open-source software
• Inspect open-source software packages for security and license compliance
• Manage organizational security and compliance policies
• Integrate license and vulnerability scans into build and deployment pipelines
• Configure build pipelines to access package security and license ratings