AZ-400 Timed Practice Test 4 — 10 Questions

Question 1

You are reviewing an Azure Policy definition applied to an Azure DevOps project. The project has a build pipeline that deploys to production. What is the effect of this policy on the build pipeline?

Accepted Answer

The policy audits the pipeline but does not enforce any mandatory reviewers.. Azure Policy definitions applied to Azure DevOps projects use the 'audit' effect by default for policy types that do not support 'deny' or 'enforce' on build pipelines. Since the policy in question does not specify a mandatory reviewer requirement with enforcement, it only audits the pipeline's compliance without blocking execution. Therefore, the pipeline runs regardless, and the policy logs a compliance state.

Answer

The policy blocks the pipeline from running if fewer than two reviewers approve.

Answer

The policy requires two reviewers and blocks the pipeline if not met.

Answer

The policy does not apply to build pipelines because the field type is teamProjects.

Question 2

Your team manages a large monorepo in Azure Repos containing multiple microservices. The repository has grown to over 10,000 files and 500 MB. Developers report that cloning and fetching operations are slow, often taking more than 10 minutes. Additionally, the CI pipeline triggers on every push to any branch, causing long queue times. You need to improve the developer experience and CI efficiency without splitting the repository. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Use Git sparse checkout to clone only the folders needed for each microservice, and configure path-based CI triggers to run only when files in specific directories change.. Option D is correct because Git sparse checkout allows developers to clone only the specific directories they need for their microservice, reducing the amount of data transferred and stored locally, which directly addresses the slow clone/fetch issue. Additionally, path-based CI triggers in Azure Pipelines ensure that the CI pipeline only runs when files in the relevant directories change, reducing unnecessary builds and queue times. This approach improves both developer experience and CI efficiency without splitting the monorepo.

Answer

Configure shallow clone (depth=1) for all operations and disable CI triggers on feature branches.

Answer

Break the monorepo into multiple smaller repositories and use Git submodules to manage dependencies.

Answer

Implement Git Virtual File System (GVFS) for the repository and use CI triggers only on the main branch.

Question 3

A development team is implementing a distributed tracing solution for a microservices application deployed on Azure. They want to correlate requests across services using OpenTelemetry and send data to Azure Monitor. The application currently generates traces, but the traces are incomplete, showing only individual service spans without end-to-end correlation. The team has already instrumented each service with the OpenTelemetry SDK. What should the team do to ensure proper end-to-end trace correlation?

Accepted Answer

Implement context propagation by passing trace headers between services.. Option A is correct because distributed tracing requires propagating trace context (trace ID, span ID) across service boundaries via HTTP headers (e.g., W3C Trace-Context). Without context propagation, each service creates its own trace, resulting in disconnected spans. The OpenTelemetry SDK automatically handles propagation when configured, but the team must ensure that outgoing requests include the trace headers and incoming requests extract them.

Answer

Enable the Application Insights auto-instrumentation agent on the application host.

Answer

Configure the OpenTelemetry SDK to use the Azure Monitor exporter instead of the default exporter.

Answer

Set the same service name for all services in the OpenTelemetry configuration.

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

A team uses a monorepo in Azure Repos. They want to implement a build validation policy that only triggers builds for code changes in specific folders to reduce build times. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Configure path filters in the pipeline trigger to include only the changed folder.. Option D is correct because Azure Pipelines supports path filters in the pipeline trigger configuration (using the `paths` keyword in YAML). This allows you to specify include and exclude patterns so that the pipeline only triggers when changes are made to specific folders within the monorepo. This directly reduces unnecessary builds and aligns with the requirement to limit builds to code changes in specific folders.

Answer

Use a manual trigger and have developers specify which folder to build.

Answer

Create separate YAML pipelines for each folder and configure branch policies to require all pipelines.

Answer

Configure the build policy in Azure Repos with a path filter to limit which folders trigger the policy.

Question 6

An organization uses Azure Repos with multiple Git repositories. They want to enforce that all commits to the main branch are signed using GPG keys. Which combination of actions is required to enforce commit signing?

Accepted Answer

Configure branch policy to require signed commits and have developers configure Git to sign commits with their GPG key.. Option C is correct because Azure Repos supports a branch policy that requires commits to be signed, and developers must configure Git to sign commits with their GPG key using `git config --global user.signingkey` and `git commit -S`. This ensures that only signed commits are accepted into the main branch, enforcing non-repudiation and integrity.

Answer

Configure branch policy to require signed commits and have developers add their SSH public key to Azure Repos.

Answer

Configure repository settings to require a personal access token (PAT) for each commit.

Answer

Use Azure Key Vault to store signing keys and configure Azure Repos to automatically sign commits.

Question 7

A team uses Git for source control. They want to automatically squash all commits in a feature branch into a single commit when merging to the main branch. Which merge type should they use?

Accepted Answer

Squash commit. B is correct because the squash commit merge type collapses all commits in a feature branch into a single new commit on the target branch. This satisfies the requirement to automatically squash all commits when merging to main, as it creates a clean, linear history with one combined commit that contains all changes from the feature branch.

Answer

Rebase and fast-forward

Answer

Merge commit (no fast-forward)

Answer

Semi-linear merge

Question 8

Which TWO of the following are valid ways to trigger a pipeline in Azure DevOps when a pull request is created?

Accepted Answer

Pull request trigger in YAML pipeline. Option A is correct because Azure DevOps YAML pipelines support a `pr` trigger that automatically runs the pipeline when a pull request is created or updated. This trigger is defined directly in the YAML file and can be scoped to specific branches or paths, making it a native and flexible way to respond to PR events.

Answer

Scheduled trigger

Answer

Continuous integration trigger

Answer

Pipeline completion trigger

Question 9

A team uses Azure Pipelines to build a .NET Core application. The build pipeline runs successfully, but the release pipeline fails when deploying to Azure App Service with the error: 'ERROR_FILE_IN_USE'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The 'Take App Offline' setting is not enabled in the deployment task.. The 'ERROR_FILE_IN_USE' error occurs when the deployment process tries to overwrite files that are currently locked by the running application. Enabling the 'Take App Offline' setting in the Azure App Service deploy task places an app_offline.htm file in the wwwroot directory, which gracefully shuts down the application and releases all file locks before the new binaries are copied. Without this setting, the running process holds locks on the DLLs, causing the deployment to fail.

Answer

The deployment slot is not configured correctly.

Answer

The Azure App Service plan is not scaled appropriately.

Answer

The build configuration is set to Release instead of Debug.

Question 10

A company uses Azure Pipelines with YAML-based pipelines stored in a Git repository. The pipeline triggers on every push to the main branch, but the team wants to reduce unnecessary builds when only documentation files are changed. What is the best way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Use path filters in the trigger section to exclude 'docs/*' and '*.md' files.. Option D is correct because using path filters with exclude patterns on the main branch trigger prevents builds for specific file changes. Option A is wrong because branch policies do not filter file changes. Option B is wrong because skipping CI entirely is not desirable. Option C is wrong because conditions evaluate after the pipeline starts, not before.

Answer

Configure branch policy to require a pull request for documentation changes.

Answer

Add a 'condition' to the pipeline that checks if changed files are documentation.

Answer

Disable CI trigger and rely on scheduled builds.

AZ-400 Timed Practice Test 4 — 10 Questions

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AZ-400 Timed Practice Test 4 — 10 Questions

Exhibit