I recently passed the Microsoft Azure AZ-400 DevOps Engineer Expert exam without any preparation , which is designed to test your knowledge and skills in DevOps practices: continuous integration and deployment, infrastructure as code, and monitoring and logging. In this blog post, I want to share my experience of taking the exam without much preparation and how I managed to pass it.

Exam Objective

• 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

Prerequisite

In order to become a Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert, you need either Azure Administrator Associate AZ-104 or Azure Developer Associate AZ-204.

Preparation

First of all, I have to admit that I got lucky to have a voucher for the exam, which I received after participating in the Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge. Otherwise, the exam fee is around $165 , which is not cheap. I booked the exam last year in November, for February 15th (this year), which was the last day to use the voucher. I did not prepare for the exam because I forgot that I had the exam on Feb 15th. Two days before the exam, I received an email from Pearson, the exam provider, reminding me of the upcoming exam, I thought I could not learn all the topics in such a short time.

I was surprised and nervous at the same time, as I did not expect the exam to be that close. I looked at the exam outline and realized that it was extensive, covering various aspects of DevOps practices and Azure services. However, I remembered that I had already gone through the Microsoft Learn modules when I participated in the cloud skills challenge back in November. That gave me some confidence as I had some background knowledge of the topics covered in the exam.

I also had one year of experience working as a DevOps Engineer with Azure DevOps as the primary tool for pipelines and continuous integration and deployment. That gave me a good understanding of how Azure services work together and how to configure them for different scenarios. Although I had not worked with Azure DevOps for some time, I could still remember the dashboard and some of the workflows I had set up.

Exam Experience

When I started the exam, I realized that some questions were challenging and required careful analysis and understanding of the scenarios. One area where I struggled was the different version control systems, such as Perforce and Apache Subversion, which I had not worked with before.

However, I managed to pass the exam with a score of 710 out of 1000 , which was just above the passing score of 700. I did the worst in the Developer Security and Compliance Plan section , which I had not practiced before. I did the best in the Implement and Instrumentation Strategy section , which I was comfortable with because of my experience.

Although I managed to pass the exam without much preparation, I would not recommend anyone to take that risk. It is better to study and revise the topics covered in the exam, especially if you are not familiar with Azure services and DevOps practices. Also, make sure you practice the exam questions and understand the scenarios presented. A year of experience working with Azure DevOps and Azure services gave me some advantages, but that might not be the case for everyone.

Resources

Microsoft Learn is your best friend for any Azure certification.

Go through the AZ-400 Microsoft Learn module.

If you are looking for a video-based course, I don't have specific recommendations but highly suggest watching this playlist by John Savill:

Make sure to check out the repo for all the code, artifacts and additional recommended videos. https://github.com/johnthebrit/DevOpsMC

youtube.com

If you are a video person, I also have a YouTube video talking about my experience with the exam.

In conclusion, passing the Microsoft Azure AZ-400 DevOps Engineer Expert exam requires a good understanding of Azure services and DevOps practices. With proper preparation and practice, anyone can pass the exam and earn the certification. If you have any questions about the exam or the certification, feel free to leave a comment below.