How to prepare for AZ-400

3 min readFeb 4, 2020

Recently I successfully accomplished the Microsoft AZ-400: Microsoft DevOps Solutions exam. The exam was very helpfully, it gave me a quick overview of all the capabilities that are possible with Azure DevOps.

During studying, I found a lot of resources that can help with preparing for the exam. I took my exam in December 2019. I had 35 questions, 2 case studies and a lab with 12 tasks. So be ready for at least one and a half-hour of examination. Also, consider taking the exam in de morning. It requires a lot of energy to read all the questions and case studies. The human body is at its top when it has had a good sleep moment.

How I prepared myself

I prepared myself with a lot of different resources. I first took a course paid by my company. The course itself did not help a lot, but the material they gave me was very helpful. I got the Person preparation exam and I got a few Microsoft online Edx books. This helpt me a lot, especially the preparation exam. It is a bit expansive, but it’s totally worth it. At each question, you get a clear explanation of each possible answer, why it’s wrong and links to documentation of Microsoft.

If you have the budget, then I highly recommend buying this preparation test. Also, Microsoft advises this test for preparing for the exam. You can buy the test at MeasureUp and MindHub.

I also used the Azure DevOps labs and Microsoft learn websites. The super cool feature that has been added to Microsoft learn since 2020 are sandboxes. You can get 10 sandboxes a day that you can use to do the exercises. This is really amazing, you can try resources like Api Management and CosmoDb. Normally these resources cost some money or like in my case, my company’s tenant restrictions didn’t allow it. If you’re looking to get a start, check out this medium post by Lukasz Gasior.

Also, check out this great preparation guide by Shivam Sharma. I used it and it was very helpful. The last resource that I, unfortunately, didn’t use. Because when I took my exam it wasn’t published yet. Is the Pluralsight learning path for AZ-400. This material is made by Microsoft and is extremely helpful.

Well, that was all. Be ready for a difficult exam. I was preparing for a month daily and I still got some questions that I wasn’t sure about. Also, you will maybe find some error’s in the MeasureUp exam. Sometimes you have a question and you most certain about the right answer, but the exam still validates it’s a mistake.

How to prepare for AZ-400

How I prepared myself

Resources

Written by Achraf Chennan