You are connecting Azure Pipelines to your Azure subscription to deploy resources. To improve security and eliminate the need to manage and rotate client secrets for service principals, which authentication method should you use for your Azure Resource Manager service connection?

Direct Answer (Verified)Reviewed by Sunny (Senior Cloud Engineer)

Correct Answer: Workload Identity Federation

Workload Identity Federation allows Azure Pipelines to authenticate to Azure without storing or managing secrets/certificates. It establishes a trust relationship using OpenID Conn...

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Real Exam ScenarioSecurity and Compliance

You are connecting Azure Pipelines to your Azure subscription to deploy resources. To improve security and eliminate the need to manage and rotate client secrets for service principals, which authentication method should you use for your Azure Resource Manager service connection?

โœ“ Correct Answer & ExplanationSecurity and Compliance

Correct Answer

Workload Identity Federation

Why This Answer Is Correct

Workload Identity Federation allows Azure Pipelines to authenticate to Azure without storing or managing secrets/certificates. It establishes a trust relationship using OpenID Connect (OIDC). Azure DevOps issues a short-lived token which Azure AD validates, significantly improving security posture by eliminating long-lived credentials.

๐Ÿ“š What This Question Tests

This question evaluates your knowledge of Security and Compliance โ€” a core concept tested in Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400). Understanding Security and Compliance is essential for designing scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud architectures. Mastery of this topic will help you answer scenario-based questions confidently on exam day.