DP - 420 : Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty

The DP - 420 : Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty certification validates your expertise in designing, implementing, and monitoring cloud-native applications that store and manage data. Your responsibilities for this role include designing and implementing data models and data distribution, loading data into an Azure Cosmos DB database, and optimizing and maintaining the solution. As a professional in this role, you integrate the solution with other Azure services. You also design, implement, and monitor solutions that consider security, availability, resilience, and performance requirements.

Audience Profile:

This course is intended for software engineers who develop cloud-native solutions using Azure Cosmos DB SQL API and its SDKs. Candidates should have experience with programming languages such as C#, Python, Java, or JavaScript and be familiar with interacting with SQL or NoSQL databases.

At Course Completion:

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Create and configure Azure Cosmos DB SQL API accounts, databases, and containers.

• Use the .NET SDK for managing resources and performing operations.

• Execute queries of varying complexity.

• Design data modeling and partitioning strategies.

• Optimize queries and indexes based on application characteristics.

• Manage accounts and resources using Azure Resource Manager with CLI or JSON and Bicep templates.

Prerequisites:

• Knowledge of Microsoft Azure and the ability to navigate the Azure portal (equivalent to AZ-900).

• Intermediate experience in an Azure-supported language (C#, JavaScript, Python, or Java).

• Experience writing code to connect and perform operations on SQL or NoSQL database products (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, Cassandra).

Course Outline:

Module 1: Get Started with Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Try Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Create an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Evaluate whether Azure Cosmos DB SQL API is the right database for your application

• Describe how the features of the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API are appropriate for modern applications

• Create a new Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account

• Create database, container, and item resources for an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account

Module 2: Plan and Implement Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Plan Resource Requirements

• Configure Azure Cosmos DB SQL API database and containers

• Moving data into and out of Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Configure throughput for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API with the Azure portal
Lab: Exercise: Migrate existing data using Azure Data Factory

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Evaluate various requirements of your application

• Plan for scale and retention requirements

• Configure throughput allocation

• Configure time-to-live values

• Migrate data using Azure services

• Migrate data using Spark or Kafka

Module 3: Connect to Azure Cosmos DB SQL API with the SDK
Lessons

• Use the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK

• Configure the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK

Lab: Exercise: Configure the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK for offline development
Lab: Exercise: Connect to Azure Cosmos DB SQL API with the SDK

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Integrate the Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos SDK library from NuGet

• Connect to an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account using the SDK and .NET

• Configure the SDK for offline development

• Troubleshoot common connection errors

• Implement parallelism in the SDK

• Configure logging using the SDK

Module 4: Access and Manage Data with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDKs
Lessons

• Implement Azure Cosmos DB SQL API point operations

• Perform cross-document transactional operations with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Process bulk data in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Create and update documents with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Batch multiple point operations together with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Move multiple documents in bulk with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Perform CRUD operations using the SDK

• Configure TTL for a specific document

• Implement optimistic concurrency control for an operation

• Create a transactional batch and review results

• Create a bulk operation

• Review the results of a bulk operation

• Implement bulk operation best practices

Module 5: Execute Queries in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Query the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Author complex queries with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Paginate cross-product query results with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Execute a query with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Create and execute a SQL query

• Project query results

• Use built-in functions in a query

• Implement a correlated subquery

• Create a cross-product query

Module 6: Define and Implement an Indexing Strategy for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Define indexes in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Customize indexes in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Review the default index policy for an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API container with the portal
Lab: Exercise: Configure an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API container's index policy with the portal

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• View and understand the default indexing policy for a SQL API container

• Customize the indexing policy for a container

• Use a composite index in an indexing policy

Module 7: Integrate Azure Cosmos DB SQL API with Azure Services
Lessons

• Consume an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API change feed using the SDK

• Handle events with Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB SQL API change feed

• Search Azure Cosmos DB SQL API data with Azure Cognitive Search

Lab: Exercise: Archive Azure Cosmos DB SQL API data using Azure Functions
Lab: Exercise: Process change feed events using the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Archive data using Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Process change feed events using the SDK

• Implement change feed best practices

• Create an Azure Functions trigger for Azure Cosmos DB

• Create an Azure Functions input for Azure Cosmos DB

• Index Azure Cosmos DB data in Azure Cognitive Search

Module 8: Implement a Data Modeling and Partitioning Strategy for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Model and partition your data in Azure Cosmos DB

• Optimize databases by using advanced modeling patterns for Azure Cosmos DB

Lab: Exercise: Measure performance for customer entities
Lab: Exercise: Advanced modeling patterns

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Identify application access patterns for an existing application

• Decide when to embed or reference data

• Use change feed to manage referential integrity

• Combine multiple entities in a single container

• Denormalize aggregated data in a single container

Module 9: Design and Implement a Replication Strategy for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Configure replication and manage failovers in Azure Cosmos DB

• Use consistency models in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Configure multi-region write in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Configure consistency models in the portal and the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Connect to different regions with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Connect to a multi-region write account with the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Distribute data across various geographies

• Define automatic failover policies

• Perform manual failovers

• Configure default consistency model

• Change per-session consistency model

• Configure multi-region write in the SDK

• Create a custom conflict resolution policy

Module 10: Optimize Query Performance in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API
Lessons

• Choosing indexes in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Optimize queries in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Implement integrated cache

Lab: Exercise: Optimize an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API container's index policy for common operations
Lab: Exercise: Optimize an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API container's index policy for a specific query

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Review and compare read-heavy vs. write-heavy index patterns

• Update indexing policy to optimize index performance

• Measure cost of a query in request units (RUs)

• Measure cost of point operations

• Work with item and query integrated cache

• Configure integrated cache staleness

Module 11: Administrate and Monitor Tasks for an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API Solution
Lessons

• Measure performance in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Monitor responses and events in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Implementing backup and restore for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Implement security in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Troubleshoot an application using the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API SDK
Lab: Exercise: Use Azure Monitor to analyze an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account
Lab: Exercise: Recover a database or container from a recovery point
Lab: Exercise: Store Azure Cosmos DB SQL API account keys in Azure Key Vault

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Observe rate-limiting events in a container or database

• Query resource logs using Azure Monitor

• Review and observe transient and rate-limiting errors

• Configure alerts

• Configure continuous backup and recovery

• Perform a point-in-time recovery

• Use role-based access control (RBAC)

• Access account resources using Azure AD and Microsoft Identity Platform

Module 12: Manage an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API Solution Using DevOps Practices
Lessons

• Write scripts for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

• Create resource template for Azure Cosmos DB SQL API

Lab: Exercise: Adjust provisioned throughput using an Azure CLI script
Lab: Exercise: Create an Azure Cosmos DB SQL API container using Azure Resource Manager templates

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• View arguments, groups, and subgroups for a specific CLI command

• Create Azure Cosmos DB accounts, databases, and containers using the CLI

• Manage an indexing policy using the CLI

• Configure database or container throughput using the CLI

• Initiate failovers and manage failover regions using the CLI

• Review ARM templates

• Deploy Azure Cosmos DB SQL API using ARM templates