Case Study 2 - Proseware Inc.
Background
Proseware Inc. develops AI-powered knowledge management solutions for enterprise customers.
The company is modernizing its platform to support semantic search, intelligent document retrieval, and real-time partner integrations.
The engineering team uses Python and Azure SDKs. The architecture is being redesigned to support containerized microservices, vector search workloads, and serverless backend processing.
Planned Application Architecture
Microservices are containerized by using Docker.
Code for containerized microservices and Azure Function apps is developed locally but stored in a GitHub repository.
Custom images for containerized microservices are stored in Azure Container Registry (ACR).
Base images are stored in Docker Hub. Custom images must be rebuilt automatically whenever their base images are updated.
Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL stores documents, metadata, and vector embeddings.
Azure Functions generate vector embeddings of Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL-hosted documents and send messages to Service Bus to trigger search index updates.
Azure Container Apps (ACA) apps host backend API services that provide semantic search across Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL documents. API services process Service Bus messages and update search indexes.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) processes batch vector embedding regeneration for existing Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL documents (whenever the embedding model is changed).
An extranet-facing containerized webhook allows business partners to submit documents to be processed by internal AI workflows for semantic search and retrieval.
Monitoring
Telemetry generated by Azure resources is sent to Azure Monitor.
A Log Analytics workspace is used to collect ACA apps logs, AKS container logs, and Azure Functions apps logs.
Monitoring of Azure Functions is currently implemented by using Azure Application Insights SDK instrumentation.
Business Requirements
Embeddings for new or updated Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL-hosted documents must be automatically generated.
Backend API services must scale automatically during business hours.
Cold start delay of backend APIs must be minimized.
Secrets must be stored outside of container images.
Developers must be able to correlate telemetry across Azure Functions hosts and apps.
All tracing must be implemented by using OpenTelemetry SDK instrumentation.
Development efforts must be minimized.
Technical Requirements
Container images must be built automatically and validated before code updates are merged into the main branch.
Image build automation must run inside the Azure Container Registry, eliminating dependency on local developer machines and external build services.
Dependency of image builds on local developer machines must be eliminated.
Event-driven scaling in ACA must occur based on the number of pending messages in the Azure Service Bus queue.
Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL RU consumption must be minimized.
Vector similarity search must use embeddings stored in Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL.
The partner-facing containerized webhook service must run on Azure App Service.
Secrets must NOT be stored in container images, source control, or application configuration directly. They must be accessed securely at runtime.
All secrets must be stored centrally in Azure Key Vault and accessed at runtime through a managed identity.
Azure App Service must supply secrets at runtime without relying on external services.
Resources and workloads must be deployed by using Bicep templates through an automated, version-controlled pipeline. Local and command-line deployments must be eliminated to ensure repeatable, auditable deployments.
Known Issues
RU consumption spikes during vector similarity queries.
Drag and Drop Question
You need to configure event-driven scaling for the backend API services to meet the technical requirements.
Which settings should you use for each element? To answer, move the appropriate settings to the correct elements. You may use each setting once, more than once, or not at all. You may need to move the split bar between panes or scroll to view content.
NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.

You deploy a production Azure Function app that connects to an Azure SQL Database.
The solution must provide the following functionality:
* Prevent secrets from being exposed in source control.
* Support secret rotation without redeploying the function app.
* Avoid downtime during credential updates.
You need to configure secure and maintainable secret management. What should you configure?

Case Study 1 - Fabrikam Inc.
Background
Fabrikam Inc. is a global retail analytics company that provides AI-driven demand forecasting and product recommendation services to online retailers. The company is modernizing its solution to run entirely on Microsoft Azure.
The platform ingests transaction data, generates embeddings for semantic retrieval, performs vector similarity search, and returns product recommendations through containerized microservices. Developers use Python and Azure SDKs. Operations teams manage container orchestration, scaling, monitoring, and security.
The solution must meet strict performance, scalability, and security requirements.
Current environment
Application architecture
The Recommendation engine is a customer-facing HTTP API running as a containerized Python application. The engine is deployed to Azure Container Apps (ACA).
Embeddings are stored in Azure Database for PostgreSQL by using pgvector.
Semantic retrieval uses metadata filtering combined with vector similarity search.
Azure Managed Redis is used as a caching layer.
Front-end and API workloads are deployed to Azure Container Apps (ACA).
Batch model retraining workloads run in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
Container and CI/CD
Container images are stored in Azure Container Registry (ACR).
CI/CD uses ACR Tasks to build images on commit.
ACA environments support revision management.
AKS workloads are deployed by using Kubernetes manifest files stored in Git.
Monitoring
Logs are collected in Azure Monitor.
Teams inspect container logs and Kubernetes events when troubleshooting.
Developers write KQL queries to analyze latency spikes.
Business requirements
Customer experience: Maintain a seamless, low-latency recommendation experience for end- users, even during unpredictable seasonal traffic spikes.
Operational cost efficiency: Minimize compute expenditures by deallocating resources during periods of inactivity and by preventing runaway scaling costs.
Data integrity and freshness: Ensure that product recommendations always reflect the most current catalog metadata and pricing to prevent customer dissatisfaction.
Security and compliance: Adhere to a Zero Trust security model by eliminating long-lived credentials and centralizing the management of all sensitive secrets.
Global scalability: Support the rapid ingestion of millions of new product embeddings daily without degrading query performance for existing retailers.
Technical requirements
Performance: Semantic search latency must remain under 200 milliseconds at peak load.
Database optimization: Use pgvector for embeddings and implement metadata filtering to reduce compute overhead. Configure compute and memory appropriately for vector workloads to ensure high-dimensional index residency in RAM and efficient mathematical throughput. Vector similarity calculations must be performed only against products that satisfy mandatory metadata constraints.
Database performance: Database connections must support high concurrency with minimal latency through the implementation of connection optimization.
Data load strategy: To ensure maximum ingestion throughput, secondary indexes must be applied only after bulk loading of embeddings is complete.
Caching: Redis cache entries must expire automatically after 10 minutes. Implement a reactive mechanism to invalidate cache entries upon metadata updates.
Identity: Use managed identities for all service-to-service and service-to-database authentication.
Plain-text credentials in configuration files are strictly prohibited.
Secret management: All secrets must be stored centrally. Secrets must be rotated automatically by using a centralized lifecycle policy.
Scaling: Use Kubernetes event-driven autoscaling (KEDA) for event-driven scaling. The Recommendation API must scale based on HTTP traffic, while batch jobs must scale based on queue length and support scale-to-zero.
CI/CD: All images must be stored in Azure Container Registry. Use ACR Tasks to automate image builds triggered by source code commits.
Monitoring: Use KQL to analyze performance telemetry and troubleshoot microservice connectivity failures. Inspect logs and events when troubleshooting AKS and ACA.
Drag and Drop Question
You need to implement the semantic retrieval workflow for the recommendation engine to meet the technical and performance requirements of Fabrikam Inc.
Which four actions should you perform in sequence? To answer, move the appropriate actions from the list of actions to the answer area and arrange them in the correct order.

Drag and Drop Question
A Python API running in ACA must send distributed traces to Azure Monitor.
The API creates spans. However, no traces appear in Azure Monitor.
You need to configure the OpenTelemetry SDK pipeline to export traces to Azure Monitor.
What should you do? To answer, move the appropriate actions to the correct requirements. You may use each action once, more than once, or not at all. You may need to move the split bar between panes or scroll to view content.
NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.

You maintain multiple versions of a container image in Azure Container Registry.
The production deployment must always run the exact same image build even if tags are changed later.
You need to ensure predictable and immutable image selection during deployment.
What should you do?