To get the most out of this book

You should have an understanding of software development processes and experience in application development and operations as either a software developer or as an IT professional. Irrespective of your background, be it software development or operations, it is important to have a basic understanding of the software delivery processes and the tools involved.

If you have taken the mock exam or want to take the official exam after reading this book and find that you are struggling with specific exam objectives, you can use the following table to find the chapters you need to re-read.

   
          
Exam objective           Relevant chapters
       
        
          
Design a DevOps strategy           Chapters 1, 8, and 13
       
        
          
Implement DevOps development processes           Chapters 4, 6, and 9
       
        
          
Implement continuous integration           Chapters 2 and 3
 
          
Implement continuous delivery           Chapter 4
       
        
          
Implement dependency management           Chapter 5
     
          
Implement application infrastructure           Chapters 6, 9, and 12
     
          
Implement continuous feedback           Chapters 10 and 11

  

Please keep in mind that some questions may fall into more than one category and that this book is developed without any access to the official exam materials.

While large parts of this book are theory, it is recommended that you experiment with the concepts introduced if you have no hands-on experience with them. Remember, if you intend to sit the AZ-400 exam, this exam is intended for practitioners with two to three years' practical experience. To perform the practical exercises in the book you will require the following:

          
Software/Hardware covered in the book           OS Requirements
 
          
Azure DevOps Services           Any device with a modern browser
 
          
Azure portal           Any device with a modern browser
 
          
Azure Powershell           Windows 10
 
          
Azure CLI, Git client           Windows, Linux or MacOS
 
          
Visual Studio           Windows or MacOS
  
  

For more practical experience, links to exercises or labs are included at the end of each chapter. Many of these exercises come from Microsoft Learn and can also be searched at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/browse/?term=devops. Microsoft has also published a cloud workshop that enables you to practice many of the topics covered in Chapters 1 to 6. This cloud workshop can be found at https://github.com/microsoft/MCW-Continuous-delivery-in-Azure-DevOps/blob/master/Hands-on%20lab/Before%20the%20HOL.md.