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``` 8 Video Courses to Ace the AZURE DevOps Exam ``` <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/OvSWd1bqk8VHkb2xtCjLMMstT81Dqpt77Z2yZTvT1pIbPWCdsaQ5yVsxw83VQFR06812mqJnvF6wDA7pqgUI3LuGRIgWLBkjuxtXvx96H1GiF7zEjhE2ym3xsA-9pB5vIuAjSnewn49jeXt2Cx_D8m-QWlcg72yc7__sjtvYDRdBZ423fz5zm6FPpQ" width="417" height="416"> <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Based on the amount of content included in the Azure <a href="https://thinkcloudly.com/devops-certified-jenkins-engineer-cje/" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">DevOps certification</a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> exam, it would take you weeks to complete all the courses and hands-on labs that are available to help you prepare for this certification. Luckily, Microsoft offers an online training course that will teach you what you need to know in the most efficient way possible: the AZ 8 Video Course. This series of videos will cover everything from configuration management and deployment automation to continuous integration and release management, making sure that you’re fully prepared to pass this exam with flying colours <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VzLk8wu0Jg7yb7JdbGzIO0WJ_A9mSNE9ZrVbItGp5rcb8GNblaY57ygHqpAAQm3BiBysMl9y-8UquLwVL2jTLHqjTclTjPebPCB6pmIUtqeLa4bEDP2DWcGLC43AF9_nkVpiAKfwe_I3rpc-snWQs3Q5SvIYeCzR3EQSwvDAqjjeus0gF8GEC2KtoQ" width="484" height="285"> <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">1) Introduction <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The Azure DevOps exam is a beast on its own based on the depth and width of the content that is included. However, regardless of everything, I believe the exam outline covers many essential topics that you are expected to know in your day-to-day life. In order to do this, it is important to put in some work now and get a grasp on those foundational topics. One way you can do this is by taking an AZ 400 video course and familiarizing yourself with what will be expected of you come time for your Azure certification exam. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">2) Container Fundamentals <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The container fundamentals AZ 400 training will teach you about containers and how they differ from virtual machines. If you're planning on jumping into development, chances are your boss or customer is going to ask you about containers and how they work. Know what containers are for, when and where you should use them, how we've used them at Azure and how others are using them in other companies. You'll also learn what Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) is and the different options for deploying a CaaS environment that best suits your needs. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">3) Overview of Kubernetes v1.7 <a href="https://thinkcloudly.com/certified-kubernetes-administrator-cka/" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Kubernetes</a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> v1.7 includes a major change in the persistent volume system where users are now required to specify volumes via subcommands. Volume provisioning with az 400 video course is also supported as an alpha feature, enabling volume configuration at create time and allowing for more control over how volumes are mounted and utilised during pod creation. If you are already running Kubernetes v1.7+, make sure your clusters are up-to-date by upgrading them manually if you haven't done so automatically! You can find out about the other changes and features that have been included in this release through our changelog or release notes. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">4) How do we run applications using Kubernetes? <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The Azure DevOps exam covers all the major topics that are expected to be known in your day-to-day life. One of these topics is how we run applications using Kubernetes. To explain how this works, I am going to use an example of a WordPress application running on Kubernetes.  <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">In order for this process to work, we need a container registry that will hold all our images and we also need Docker installed on our development machine. The next step is to create a Docker file which will define what version of Linux and what environment variables are needed for our containers. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">5) What if I want to build my own custom cluster? <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Running your own Azure cluster is a lot of work and requires a deep understanding of how to provision, configure, and update resources. The <a href="https://thinkcloudly.com/azure-devops-certification-az-400/" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">az 400</a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> video course can help you learn those skills in a structured way that provides a good base for the next steps. The next steps include learning about all the options that are available with Cloud Services (IaaS) or starting with Virtual Machines (PaaS). However, there is no single path that suits everyone's needs. You will have to decide which option makes the most sense given your background knowledge and technical proficiency level. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">6) NoSQL Database Fundamentals <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The Az 400 video course will teach you all of the core fundamentals you need in order to grasp NoSQL databases. You can learn at your own pace through over 70 lectures, or use project-based learning with a workbook for each lecture. Once you're done, take the quiz to test what you've learned and see where you stand. If you do well on the quiz, go ahead and register for the certification exam! <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">7) Where do we store our logs from our container clusters? <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The logs for containers are stored in a container registry. To access these logs, you would create an Azure Storage account and then create a container within it. You can then upload your logs from your cluster into this container and they will be made available through a web portal. What is the architecture of Continues Integration (CI) pipelines?: CI pipelines consist of stages that provide pre-configured tasks that are designed to support various functionalities including unit testing, package building and deployment. These stages are set up by pulling templates from a Git repository that contain the definition for each stage as well as any required resources such as build configurations or environment variables that may be necessary. A CI pipeline is configured by connecting different stages together based on how they interact with one another with specific input sources and output targets. When triggered, each stage executes sequentially until all of them have completed or been terminated. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">8) How do we monitor our cluster/clusters? <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Monitoring is an essential task for any enterprise, and we monitor our clusters with a combination of Azure Alerts, Azure Monitor, and Operations Management Suite. This gives us a complete picture of what's going on in our clusters at any given time. We use Azure Alerts for near-real-time alerts about issues in our environment that require immediate attention.  <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Our monitoring solution also includes customizing alert policies and threshold levels for things like CPU utilization, disk space, or data throughput rates so that we can set the right level of notification and action depending on the sensitivity of those metrics. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Final Thought <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">I would highly recommend working through the Azure DevOps course found on Udacity. The course is structured in a way that makes it easy for you to work through at your own pace, and all of the videos are recorded so that they can be paused and rewound as many times as necessary. You also get access to a guided lab environment where you can practice what you learn! ``` ```