AZ-400 Design and implement build and release pipelines Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You have a release pipeline that deploys to multiple stages (Dev, QA, Prod). You want to automatically deploy to Dev and QA after a successful build, but require a manual approval for Prod. Which deployment strategy should you use?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Set pre-deployment approvals on the Prod stage.. Pre-deployment approvals control whether a release can start deploying to a stage. By setting a pre-deployment approval on the Prod stage only, Dev and QA will deploy automatically (since they have no approval requirement), while Prod requires manual sign-off before deployment begins. This matches the requirement exactly.

Answer

Set pre-deployment approvals on the Dev and QA stages.

Answer

Use a post-deployment approval on the QA stage.

Answer

Disable the automatic trigger for all stages.

Question 2

Which two actions can you use to validate that a deployment to a staging environment is successful before promoting to production? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Configure gates on the staging environment to check health metrics.. Gates with health checks can monitor metrics like error rates before allowing promotion. Manual intervention with a post-deployment approval also allows a human to validate before proceeding. Both are valid methods.

Answer

Add a manual intervention task in the pipeline.

Answer

Use a pull request to validate the deployment.

Answer

Run a load test as part of the pipeline.

Question 3

You are designing a pipeline that must run tasks in a container. The container needs access to Azure resources using a managed identity. Which two configurations are required? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Enable a system-assigned managed identity on the agent VM.. Enabling a system-assigned managed identity on the agent VM allows the container job to use the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) endpoint to obtain tokens for authenticating to Azure resources without storing credentials. Option D is incorrect because Azure Pipelines container job resource definitions do not have an 'identity' field; the identity is inherited from the agent VM.

Answer

Use the 'docker login' command in the pipeline.

Answer

Add a service principal connection to the pipeline.

Answer

Set the 'identity' field in the container resource definition.

Answer

Use the Azure CLI task with '–identity' flag.

Question 4

You are configuring a YAML build pipeline for a .NET Core application. Which task should you use to restore NuGet packages?

Accepted Answer

DotNetCoreCLI task with 'restore' command. The DotNetCoreCLI task with the 'restore' command is the recommended approach for restoring NuGet packages in a YAML build pipeline for a .NET Core application. It directly invokes 'dotnet restore', which is the native .NET CLI command that handles package restoration efficiently and integrates seamlessly with the .NET SDK, ensuring compatibility with project files and dependency resolution.

Answer

NuGetCommand task

Answer

PowerShell task with dotnet restore

Answer

NuGetAuthenticate task

Question 5

You have a release pipeline that deploys to multiple environments. You need to ensure that a manual approval is required before deploying to production. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Set a pre-deployment approval on the production stage. Pre-deployment approvals are configured on a stage in Azure Pipelines to require manual sign-off before any deployment to that stage begins. Since the question specifies that approval is needed before deploying to production, a pre-deployment approval on the production stage enforces that gate before the release pipeline executes any deployment tasks in that environment.

Answer

Add a manual intervention task in the production stage

Answer

Set a post-deployment approval on the production stage

Answer

Set a branch policy on the release branch

Question 6

Your YAML pipeline uses a self-hosted agent pool. You need to ensure that only the pipeline can trigger builds on that pool, preventing other projects from using it. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Configure pipeline permissions in the agent pool security settings. Azure DevOps agent pool security settings allow you to restrict which pipelines or projects can use a specific agent pool. By configuring pipeline permissions, you can grant the 'Use' permission only to the intended pipeline, preventing other projects from triggering builds on that pool. This ensures exclusive access without disabling the pool for all other uses.

Answer

Set the agent pool to 'Disabled' for other projects

Answer

Use a deployment group instead of an agent pool

Answer

Create a separate agent pool for each project

Question 7

Which two of the following are valid strategies to implement conditional deployment in a YAML pipeline? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Use the 'condition' property on a stage. Both 'condition' property and template expressions with parameters are valid strategies for conditional deployment in YAML pipelines. The 'condition' property (e.g., `eq(variables['Build.SourceBranch'], 'refs/heads/main')`) controls at runtime whether a stage, job, or step runs, based on variables or expressions. Template expressions with parameters (e.g., `${{ if eq(parameters['environment'], 'prod') }}`) allow you to conditionally include or exclude parts of the pipeline at compile time, making them a powerful tool for conditional deployment based on parameters.

Answer

Configure stage filters in the triggers section

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Use dependency conditions like 'succeededOrFailed'

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Add a PowerShell script to check environment

Question 8

You are designing a release pipeline that must deploy to Azure App Service across multiple regions. Which two practices should you implement to minimize downtime during deployments? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Use Azure App Service deployment slots and perform a swap. Azure App Service deployment slots allow you to deploy a new version of your application to a staging slot, perform validation, and then swap it into production with zero downtime. The swap operation warms up the target slot and smoothly transitions traffic, ensuring no requests are dropped during the update. Additionally, implementing a rolling deployment strategy across regions reduces the blast radius and allows you to gradually shift traffic, further minimizing downtime during multi-region updates.

Answer

Stop the web app before deploying, then start it after

Answer

Deploy to all regions simultaneously

Answer

Use a single deployment slot for all regions

Question 9

You have a multi-stage YAML pipeline that deploys to a Linux-based Azure App Service. The pipeline uses a 'Deploy to Azure App Service' task. You need to ensure that the deployment uses the Kudu REST API with ZIP deployment. Which value should you set for the 'packageForLinux' task input?

Accepted Answer

Set 'packageForLinux' to true. The 'packageForLinux' input must be set to 'true' to force the 'Deploy to Azure App Service' task to use the Kudu REST API with ZIP deployment when targeting a Linux-based Azure App Service. This is required because Linux App Services do not support WebDeploy (MSDeploy) and rely on the Kudu endpoint for ZIP-based deployments.

Answer

Set 'enableCustomDeployment' to true

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Set 'useWebDeploy' to false

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Set 'enableKuduDeploy' to true

Question 10

Your YAML pipeline uses the 'AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment' task to deploy ARM templates. You need to handle incremental deployments and ensure that the task fails if any resource already exists and cannot be updated. Which deployment mode should you specify?

Accepted Answer

Incremental. The 'Incremental' deployment mode in the AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment task handles only changes specified in the template, leaving existing resources unchanged. If a resource already exists and cannot be updated (e.g., due to a property conflict or immutable resource), the deployment fails, meeting the requirement to fail on such conflicts. This mode is the standard for additive, non-destructive ARM template deployments.

Answer

Complete

Answer

Validate

Answer

CreateOrUpdate

Question 11

You configured a multi-stage YAML pipeline with a deployment job that uses a deployment strategy like 'runOnce' or 'rolling'. You need to ensure that the deployment target is marked as 'succeeded' only after the deployment job completes successfully, and that any previous deployment to the same environment is preserved for rollback. Which setting must you configure?

Accepted Answer

Set the environment's 'retain' property to 1 or more. Setting the environment's 'retain' property to 1 or more ensures that the previous deployment (e.g., the last successful run) is preserved as a 'retained' revision in the environment. This allows you to redeploy that specific revision for rollback purposes. The deployment job marks the environment target as 'succeeded' only after the job completes successfully, and retaining previous revisions prevents them from being automatically cleaned up.

Answer

Set the deployment job's 'continueOnError' to true

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Use the 'deployment' job with 'strategy: rolling'

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Set the 'deploymentStrategy' to 'blueGreen'

Question 12

You need to trigger a pipeline whenever changes are pushed to the 'main' branch of a GitHub repository. Which trigger should you configure in the YAML pipeline?

Accepted Answer

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
    - main. The `trigger` keyword at the root of a YAML pipeline defines the CI trigger that automatically starts a pipeline run when changes are pushed to the specified branch. By including `main` under `branches.include`, the pipeline will trigger on any push to the `main` branch of the GitHub repository, which is the standard way to set up a CI trigger for a single branch.

Answer

pr:
  branches:
    include:
    - main

Answer

resources:
  repositories:
  - repository: self
    trigger:
      branches:
        include:
        - main

Answer

schedules:
- cron: "0 0 * * *"
  branches:
    include:
    - main

Question 13

You are designing a build pipeline for a .NET Core application. You need to ensure that the pipeline restores NuGet packages from both an Azure Artifacts feed and the public NuGet gallery. The pipeline must fail if a package is not found in either source. Which two actions must you take? (Select two.)

Accepted Answer

Create a NuGet.config file that includes both feeds as package sources and reference it in the restore task.. Creating a NuGet.config file that includes both the Azure Artifacts feed and the public NuGet gallery as package sources, and referencing it in the restore task, ensures the pipeline consults both sources. Option D is incorrect because the 'CheckConsistency' flag is not related to failing on missing packages; the restore task already fails by default if a package cannot be resolved from any configured source. Options B, C, and E do not fulfill the requirement to fail on missing packages from both sources.

Answer

Set the 'NoWarn' property to NU1603 to ignore warnings about missing packages.

Answer

Use the 'dotnet restore' task with the '--no-cache' flag.

Answer

Set the 'CheckConsistency' flag to true in the restore task.

Answer

Configure the Azure Artifacts feed to use the public NuGet gallery as an upstream source.

Question 14

Drag and drop the steps to implement infrastructure as code with Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates into the correct order.

Accepted Answer

Define the ARM template, then parameterize, then store in version control, then validate using what-if, then deploy.. The correct order for implementing infrastructure as code with ARM templates is: first define the ARM template, then parameterize it to make it reusable, then store it in version control (e.g., Git) to track changes, then validate the deployment using the what-if operation to preview changes, and finally deploy the template to Azure.

Answer

Define the ARM template, then parameterize, then deploy, then validate, then store in version control.

Answer

Parameterize, then define the ARM template, then validate, then deploy, then store in version control.

Answer

Define the ARM template, then validate, then parameterize, then deploy, then store in version control.

Question 15

Match each Azure Pipeline concept to its definition.

Accepted Answer

Pipeline: A collection of stages that defines the CI/CD process.. The correct matches are: A: Pipeline → 'A collection of stages that defines the CI/CD process' (correct); B: Stage → 'A logical boundary in the pipeline used to group jobs' (correct); C: Job → 'A unit of work that runs on an agent' (correct); D: Task → 'A single operation to perform in a job' (correct). E is incorrect because Pipeline is not a logical boundary; that definition belongs to Stage. F is incorrect because Stage is not a collection of stages; that definition belongs to Pipeline. The most common confusion is swapping the definitions of Pipeline and Stage.

Answer

Pipeline: A logical boundary in the pipeline used to group jobs.

Answer

Stage: A collection of stages that defines the CI/CD process.