AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement build and release pipelines
Which THREE are true about using deployment groups in Azure Pipelines? (Choose 3)
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse deployment groups with environments, assuming they are the same concept, but deployment groups are a legacy feature for multi-machine deployments while environments are a newer, more flexible abstraction that supports Kubernetes, virtual machines, and other resources.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Each machine in a deployment group must have the Azure Pipelines agent installed.
Each target machine in a deployment group requires the Azure Pipelines agent (either the Windows or Linux agent) to be installed and configured. The agent is responsible for executing the deployment tasks on that machine, and without it, the deployment group cannot communicate with or deploy to the machine.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Each machine in a deployment group must have the Azure Pipelines agent installed.
Why this is correct
The Azure Pipelines agent is required on every machine in a deployment group because it is the execution engine that receives and runs tasks from the pipeline. Without the agent, the deployment group cannot communicate with Azure Pipelines or execute any deployment steps on that target machine.
- ✗
Deployment groups can only be used with Windows-based machines.
Why it's wrong here
Deployment groups are not limited to Windows; they support any machine that can run the Azure Pipelines agent, including Linux and macOS. As long as the agent software is installed and can communicate with Azure Pipelines, the machine can be part of a deployment group regardless of its operating system.
- ✓
Deployment groups allow you to deploy an application to multiple machines in a rolling fashion.
Why this is correct
Deployment groups enable rolling deployments by letting you target multiple machines that the agent has registered. Azure Pipelines can then deploy to these machines incrementally, applying updates to a subset at a time to reduce downtime and risk during the release process.
- ✓
Deployment groups can be used in classic release pipelines.
Why this is correct
Deployment groups are a feature of classic release pipelines, where you can add them as a phase type and use them to run deployment tasks against registered machines. They are fully supported in the classic release management experience, making them a straightforward option for organizations still using that model.
- ✗
Deployment groups are tied to a specific environment.
Why it's wrong here
Deployment groups are not tied to a specific environment; they are project-level resources that you define once and can use across multiple release pipelines and stages. Environments, on the other hand, are a separate concept in Azure Pipelines that provide additional capabilities like approvals and resource tracking, while deployment groups simply represent a collection of target machines.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to DevOps and Azure DevOps
Key term
Azure Pipelines
Azure Pipelines is a cloud-based CI/CD service from Microsoft that automatically builds, tests, and deploys code to any platform or cloud.
Key term
Deployment group
A deployment group is a logical set of target machines or servers in Azure Pipelines that receive application releases during automated deployment, allowing you to manage rolling updates and release approvals across multiple environments.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-400 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-400 exam.