Let’s begin this blog on Azure DevOps Certification by briefly explaining why public cloud providers such as Azure started providing DevOps certifications. In recent years, the IT industry has witnessed radical changes in traditional software development. These changes brought in a necessity to keep the software development lifecycle (SDLC) process flowing smoothly. That was the birth of DevOps.
DevOps undoubtedly gained popularity as organizations realized that incorporating DevOps accelerates application development and delivery, along with other major benefits. Different public cloud providers also recognized DevOps as a better software development methodology. They realized how important it is for their clients to deploy this methodology for building applications. Therefore, to maintain high standards in the processes of application development, public cloud providers have introduced DevOps certifications to offer skilled professionals to the industry.
Now, coming back to Azure DevOps Certification, the following are the topics that will be discussed in this blog:
What Is Azure DevOps?
Azure DevOps is a set of services offered by Microsoft Azure that helps developers deploy DevOps in their application development processes on the Azure platform. These services come in two forms:
Azure DevOps Services include a lot of built-in functionalities, allowing development teams to manage products and automate workflows to increase productivity.
Following are the services that are collectively called Azure DevOps Services:
- Azure Repos: This service offers limitless private Git repositories that are hosted on the cloud. Users are allowed to pull, push, and commit changes to these repositories.
- Azure Pipelines: With Azure pipelines, users can support the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) of their applications.
- Azure Boards: This set of Agile tools comes in handy when multiple teams work on the same project, and they need to keep track of all the changes that are made.
- Azure Test Plans: This service provides a complete toolkit to perform the entire testing of applications or software, including exploratory testing, continuous testing, and manual testing.
- Azure Artifacts: This service helps users share packages of Maven, npm, and NuGet both from public and private sources and integrate this package sharing into their CI/CD pipelines.
Why Azure DevOps Certification?
Microsoft Azure has demonstrated tremendous growth and one of the fastest market penetrations in a relatively short period of time. As claimed by Microsoft, “95 percent of the Fortune 500 companies already use Azure.”
If this isn’t the most impressive business success statistic, then what is?
With so many organizations using Azure for their businesses, Azure DevOps job opportunities and demand for Azure-skilled cloud professionals, including certified Azure DevOps Engineers, are in high demand.
According to 6figr, the average salary of an Azure DevOps Engineer ranges from ₹17 lakhs to ₹42 lakhs per year. The average annual salary of an Azure DevOps engineer working at a service-based company can range from ₹5 lakhs to ₹23 lakhs based on data from DevOpsSchool. Let’s further observe the salary trends through the following graph:
Source:ambitionbox
Watch this video on Azure DevOps Certification Course:
Learning Path for AZ-400 Certification
To prepare for the AZ-400 certification, you can follow the learning path outlined below:
For you to take on AZ-400 exam, you need to have certain prerequisites, such as AZ-204 or AZ-104 certification. If you’ve got any of these certifications, you can take the AZ-400 certification exam. The other criterion is work experience in the development and administration of the Azure Cloud.
Let us cover how you can approach the preparation journey from a beginner’s point of view:
Step 1: Take On Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 is not a must-have criterion. But if you are a beginner and don’t have technical know-how about cloud computing and Azure cloud, you must go through the AZ-900 certification training.
To build a more technical understanding of how to use Microsoft Azure, you can go through a Free Microsoft Azure Certification Course offered by Intellipaat. This certification will help you gain a practical understanding of the Azure Cloud.
You can also use the free resources provided by Microsoft Azure to clear the foundational level exam. Once you clear this step you will understand cloud principles and multiple terminologies of Azure Cloud.
The cost of this exam is $99.
Skills measured for Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900, along with their weightage, are mentioned below:
- Describe cloud concepts (25–30%)
- Describe Azure architecture and services (35–40%)
- Describe Azure management and governance (30–35%)
Step 2: Clear AZ-104/AZ-204 Certification Exam
To become certified in Microsoft Azure DevOps, you must first become certified in Microsoft Azure Associate. There are two alternatives for this certification: Azure Administrator and Azure Developer.
Microsoft Azure Administrator AZ-104
Taking an administrator course can be beneficial for learning DevOps because it provides a solid foundation for understanding the fundamental components and services of Microsoft Azure. Administrator courses often cover topics such as automation, monitoring, and troubleshooting, which are key components of DevOps workflows.
Below are the important skills you will have to master to clear the AZ-104 certification. We have listed the skills along with the weightage they hold in the AZ-104 examination:
- Manage Azure identities and governance (20–25%)
- Implement and manage storage (15–20%)
- Deploy and manage Azure compute resources (20–25%)
- Implement and manage virtual networking (15–20%)
- Monitor and maintain Azure resources (10–15%)
Microsoft Azure Developer AZ-204
Microsoft Azure Developer AZ-204 course can greatly contribute to learning DevOps by providing developers with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively develop and deploy applications on the Azure platform. By completing an AZ-204 course, developers gain the necessary Azure development skills that directly contribute to DevOps practices.
While preparing for the Microsoft Azure Developer AZ-204 certification, one should cover the following topics:
- Azure DevOps
- CI/CD
- Version Control
- Build/Release Pipelines
- Application Configuration and Secrets Management
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Using Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates
The moment you clear either AZ-204 or AZ-104 certifications, you will have knowledge of Azure Administration and Azure Development. Knowing these things is essential before you touch upon the concept of DevOps.
Step 3: Prepare for Azure DevOps Engineer AZ-400
Since you have dealt with AZ-204 or AZ-104 certification, you will have either the knowledge of development or operations over the Azure Cloud. Now all you need to do is learn another counterpart, which includes designing and implementing methods for source control, security, collaboration, continuous integration, testing, delivery, monitoring, and feedback.
To become an Azure DevOps engineer, you will have to mainly master the concepts listed below:
- Configure processes and communications
- Design and implement source control
- Design and implement build and release pipelines
- Develop a security and compliance plan
- Implement an instrumentation strategy
To prepare for an Azure DevOps engineer exam, follow below-mentioned steps:
Study Microsoft’s official exam objectives for the AZ-400 certification. These outline the knowledge and skills you need to have in order to pass the exam.
Understand the key concepts related to implementing DevOps practices, including version control, continuous integration, continuous delivery, infrastructure as code, monitoring, and feedback loops.
- Explore Azure DevOps Documentation
Microsoft provides comprehensive documentation for Azure DevOps, covering all the services and features. Study the documentation to understand Azure DevOps and its features.
- Take Online Courses or Training
Consider enrolling in online courses or training programs specifically designed for the AZ-400 certification. Microsoft Learn offers a variety of free and paid learning paths and modules related to Azure DevOps.
- Hands-On Experience and Labs
Practice your skills by working on real-world scenarios and projects. Create sample applications to implement DevOps practices using Azure DevOps.
Set up continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines, configure release management, automate infrastructure provisioning, and integrate monitoring and feedback mechanisms.
- Exam Registration and Preparation
When you feel confident in your knowledge and skills, register for the AZ-400 certification exam through the Microsoft Learning website.
Now that we have covered the learning path for the AZ-400 certification exam let’s also explore the prerequisites for the exam and what type of questions you can expect in an examination.
Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
Azure DevOps Certification is one of the new role-based Azure certifications, which falls under the category of expert-level certifications. Candidates acquiring this certification officially hold the status of Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert. An Azure DevOps-certified candidate is expected to be proficient in DevOps methodologies and development processes.
To earn this certification, candidates have to take up the respective exam offered by Azure, i.e., AZ-400. Let’s explore this exam for Microsoft Azure DevOps Certification in detail.
Exam AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions
The exam that is associated with the Azure DevOps Certification is Exam AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions. This exam tests candidates’ ability to design and implement various DevOps strategies.
Prerequisites to Take Up the AZ-400 Exam
- Candidates must be familiar with both Azure development and Azure administration.
- They must be Azure certified with any of the two associate-level certifications.
- They must be proficient in implementing Agile processes.
Curriculum for the Exam
| Skills Measured | Exam Weightage |
| Designing and developing an instrumentation strategy | 5–10% |
| Developing a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) strategy | 5–10% |
| Designing and developing a security and compliance plan | 10–15% |
| Managing source control | 10–15% |
| Facilitating communication and collaboration | 10–15% |
| Defining and implementing continuous integration | 20–25% |
| Defining and implementing continuous delivery and releasing the management strategy | 10–15% |
Languages: English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and Korean
Exam cost: US$165.00
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Exam Details: Microsoft Azure DevOps (AZ-400)
Certification Name: AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
Prerequisite: Should have AZ-104 or AZ-204 certifications
Exam Duration: 150-210 minutes
Number of Questions: 40-60 (One lab with around 10 subtasks)
Passing score: 700 (Out of 1000)
Validity: 1 year from the date you cleared the certification exam
Type of Questions
The various question patterns seen in the Azure DevOps Certification AZ-400 are listed below:
- Single-choice questions (based on a scenario): These questions can neither be skipped nor recorrected later on, as you cannot go back once you’ve answered them.
- Single-choice questions
- Multiple-choice questions
- Arrange in sequence-type questions
- Case study questions
Recommended Azure DevOps Certification Training
When it comes to preparing for the certification exam, it is always better to find a proper training course from a well-recognized platform. Intellipaat can help you with this. Intellipaat offers well-structured and industry-based training courses for Azure certifications, including Azure DevOps Certification.
This course also includes real-world, hands-on projects, case studies, and more for you to work on, ensuring that you gain end-to-end knowledge of Azure and DevOps. Hence, the course will significantly increase your chances of clearing the official Azure DevOps exam. To top it all, you will also get assistance from our 24/7 technical support team for clearing any or all of your queries. So, get yourself enrolled today, and take your first step toward becoming an Azure-certified DevOps engineer.