Retired AZ-204 — Azure application-development foundation
AZ-204 courseware retired on 2026-05-29. The exam and Azure Developer Associate certification retired on 2026-07-31. This path preserves useful application-development concepts; it is not a current exam or certification route.
Why this path exists
Administrators and DevOps engineers need to understand the application they deploy. This path connects code, SDK calls, runtime hosting, data access, identity, messages, telemetry, and deployment boundaries. It assumes a learner can read basic code and HTTP/JSON; the prerequisite bridges will teach the Azure-specific parts.
Central mental model
An application receives a request or event, authenticates a principal, authorizes an operation, reads or writes data, emits telemetry, and runs on a managed or containerized compute boundary. A build produces an immutable artifact; a deployment promotes it into that runtime; monitoring and recovery expose whether the workload still meets its purpose.
Map / Canvas
AZ-204 application foundation relationship map
Ordered modules
- Runtime choices: container images, ACR, ACI, Container Apps, App Service, Functions, settings, TLS, slots, and autoscale.
- Developer data access and application security: Cosmos DB SDK/consistency/change feed, Blob SDK/properties/metadata, lifecycle policies, identity, SAS, App Configuration, Key Vault, and managed identities.
- APIs, events, and messages: API Management, OpenAPI, Event Grid, Event Hubs, Service Bus, and Queue Storage.
- Application observability: Application Insights, metrics, logs, traces, availability tests, and alerts.
- Deployment and compute: artifact promotion, managed runtimes, configuration, TLS, and autoscale.
- Functions and data events: triggers, bindings, SDK boundaries, retries, and Cosmos DB change feed.
Important relationships and comparisons
- A container image bundles application and runtime dependencies; a registry stores the image; a runtime pulls and executes it.
- A trigger starts a Function; a binding connects data; an SDK call gives the application explicit control.
- Authentication establishes who or what acts; authorization decides what that principal may do.
- Event Grid announces an occurrence; Event Hubs carries an ordered partitioned stream; Service Bus and Queue Storage carry work messages.
- A managed identity is an Azure-managed principal; a service principal is an application identity whose credential lifecycle the owner manages.
- Application Insights receives application telemetry; an alert rule evaluates a signal; an action group routes a response.
Conceptual checkpoint
For a photo-processing API, choose a compute boundary, trace an upload through identity and Blob Storage to a processing event, select the event or message service, identify the deployment artifact and runtime handoff, and explain how a failed request becomes telemetry and an actionable alert.
Next path
Continue to AZ-400 advanced DevOps.
Sources and re-audit
- AZ-204 study guide, skills measured 2026-01-14; checked 2026-08-31.
- Retired certification exams, checked 2026-08-31.
- Archived MicrosoftLearning AZ-204 structure, checked 2026-08-31; structure reference only.
Re-audit when Microsoft changes the retirement record, republishes course structure, or relevant Azure product behavior changes.