Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions (AZ-400)

Module 1: designing and implementing processes and communications

• DevOps planning and a culture of continuous improvement within cross-functional teams.
• Defining and monitoring DevOps metrics: cycle time, lead time, time to recovery and deployment frequency.
• Implementing agile work management tools with Azure Boards and GitHub Projects: backlogs, sprints, Kanban boards and KPIs.
• Traceability between work items, source code and deployments.

Lab

• Create and configure an Azure Boards project with dashboards and DevOps metrics.

Module 2: designing and implementing a source control strategy

• Configuring code repositories with Git, Azure Repos and GitHub.
• Branching strategies suited to business contexts: GitFlow, GitHub Flow and trunk-based development.
• Merge policies, code review and branch protection.
• Scaling Git for large organisations with submodules and monorepos.

Lab

• Configure an Azure Repos repository with branch policies and a code review workflow.

Module 3: designing and implementing build pipelines

• Creating build pipelines with Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions using YAML.
• Integrating automated tests: unit tests, integration tests and code quality analysis.
• Building container images and publishing them to Azure Container Registry.
• Managing build agents: Microsoft-hosted and self-hosted agents.

Lab

• Implement a multi-stage YAML build pipeline with Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions.

Module 4: designing and implementing release pipelines

• Designing a release strategy with environments, approvals and quality gates.
• Advanced deployment strategies: blue-green, canary, rolling updates and feature flags.
• Automated deployment to Azure App Service, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Functions.
• Managing releases with deployment gates and rollback mechanisms.

Lab

• Deploy an application with a canary strategy to Azure App Service through Azure Pipelines.

Module 5: developing a DevSecOps security and compliance plan

• Integrating security into CI/CD pipelines: static analysis (SAST) with GitHub Advanced Security and Microsoft Defender for DevOps.
• Managing dependency vulnerabilities with Mend (formerly WhiteSource) and Dependabot.
• Managing secrets and identities with Azure Key Vault, RBAC and managed identities.
• Pipeline compliance: Azure Policy, auditing and infrastructure governance.

Lab

• Configure secret management with Azure Key Vault and integrate GitHub Advanced Security into a pipeline.

Module 6: managing dependencies and artefacts

• Managing packages and artefacts with Azure Artifacts: npm, Maven, NuGet and Python.
• Semantic versioning and package publishing strategies.
• Optimising dependency management workflows and reducing supply chain risks.

Lab

• Create an Azure Artifacts feed and configure dependency management in a CI/CD pipeline.

Module 7: implementing infrastructure as code

• Automating infrastructure deployments with Bicep, ARM Templates and Terraform.
• Configuration management with Azure App Configuration and dynamic environments.
• Deploying and managing containers with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Infrastructure compliance and security: drift detection and governance policies.

Lab

• Deploy a complete Azure infrastructure with Bicep and Terraform in a CI/CD pipeline.

Module 8: implementing instrumentation and continuous feedback

• Configuring application monitoring with Azure Monitor and Application Insights.
• Defining SLOs, SLIs and SLAs within a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) approach.
• Establishing alerts, dashboards and continuous feedback mechanisms for development teams.
• Analysing logs with Log Analytics and creating KQL queries for diagnosis.

Lab

• Configure Application Insights and create monitoring dashboards with automated alerts.