AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A production workload must continue running if one entire Azure datacenter in the region becomes unavailable. The region supports availability zones, and you want the strongest placement option for a single VM. What should you choose?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Availability zone. An availability zone protects against an entire datacenter failure by placing the VM in a physically separate zone within the region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. This is the strongest placement option for a single VM because it guarantees isolation from other zones, ensuring the workload continues if one datacenter fails. Availability sets only protect against rack-level failures within the same datacenter, not a full datacenter outage.

Answer

Availability set

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Proximity placement group

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Managed disk snapshot

Question 2

A developer has the Contributor role on a resource group. A Bicep deployment that creates a VM with a public IP fails with a policy denial, but the same template succeeds after the public IP resource is removed. Which two statements are true? Select two.

Accepted Answer

The Contributor role allows deployments in the resource group, but it cannot override a deny policy inherited from a higher scope.. The Contributor role grants full management access to resources within the resource group, but it cannot override Azure Policy effects such as 'deny'. Policy inheritance flows from higher scopes (management group, subscription) down to the resource group, and even a Contributor cannot bypass a deny policy assigned at a higher scope. The Bicep deployment fails specifically because the public IP resource violates a policy rule, not because of a lack of permissions on the role itself.

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A CanNotDelete lock is the reason the public IP resource cannot be created.

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Assigning Owner on the resource group would automatically bypass the policy denial and allow the template to deploy unchanged.

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Moving the VM to another subnet in the same virtual network would remove the inherited policy effect.

Question 3

A web front end must automatically add or remove instances based on demand. The application is stateless and all instances should be managed as one group. Which Azure service should you use?

Accepted Answer

Virtual Machine Scale Set. Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) automatically scale the number of VM instances in or out based on demand or a defined schedule, making them ideal for stateless, horizontally scalable applications. They manage all instances as a single group behind a load balancer, ensuring uniform configuration and seamless scaling without manual intervention.

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A single Azure VM with a larger size

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Availability set

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Managed disk snapshots

Question 4

You want to deploy a resource group with Bicep and see the changes Azure plans to make before you apply them. Which command should you run?

Accepted Answer

az deployment group what-if. The `az deployment group what-if` command is correct because it performs a dry-run validation of a Bicep (or ARM) deployment against a resource group, showing the changes Azure will make (create, modify, delete) without actually applying them. This is the Azure equivalent of a 'what-if' analysis, allowing you to review the impact before execution.

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az deployment group create

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az group delete

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az vm update

Question 5

You are creating a new Ubuntu VM and want it to create a local admin account and install packages automatically on the first boot. Which approach should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use cloud-init to run first-boot configuration in Linux.. Cloud-init is the standard method for automating first-boot configuration on Linux VMs in Azure. It processes user-data (such as cloud-config YAML) to create users, install packages, and run scripts during initial boot, making it the correct choice for creating a local admin account and installing packages automatically.

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Use an availability set so the script runs during placement.

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Use a snapshot of the operating system disk.

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Use a custom image and manually log in later.

Question 6

You have already deployed a Windows Server VM. After provisioning, you need to run a PowerShell script once to configure an application and create a registry setting without logging in interactively. Which Azure feature should you use?

Accepted Answer

Custom Script Extension. The Custom Script Extension (CSE) is the correct choice because it allows you to run a PowerShell script on a Windows VM after provisioning, without requiring interactive logon. It executes the script as the local system account, making it ideal for one-time configuration tasks like setting registry keys or installing applications. This aligns with the requirement to run a script once non-interactively.

Answer

cloud-init

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Azure Policy

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Recovery Services vault

Question 7

Before changing a production VM's data disk, you want a point-in-time copy that can be restored later without affecting the VM. What should you create?

Accepted Answer

Snapshot. A snapshot captures a point-in-time, read-only copy of a managed or unmanaged disk. It can be used to create a new disk or restore the original disk without affecting the running VM, making it the correct choice for a non-disruptive backup before a data disk change.

Answer

Availability set

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Azure Policy assignment

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Virtual network peering

Question 8

You need to deploy a new Ubuntu VM that automatically creates an app user and installs packages the first time it boots. Which approach should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use cloud-init in the VM creation settings to perform first-boot configuration.. B is correct because cloud-init is the standard, native mechanism for performing first-boot configuration on Linux VMs in Azure. It allows you to inject a configuration file (e.g., YAML or shell script) during VM creation that automatically creates users, installs packages, and runs custom commands on the first boot, without requiring any post-deployment scripts or manual intervention.

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Use an availability set so the VM runs the initialization tasks during host placement.

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Use an Azure Policy assignment to install the packages after deployment.

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Use a managed disk snapshot and attach it to the VM after deployment.

Question 9

You need to resize a VM to a larger size, but Azure says the target size is not available while the VM is running. What should you do first?

Accepted Answer

Deallocate the VM, then retry the resize.. When a VM is running, Azure may not have the target VM size available in the cluster hosting the VM. Deallocating the VM releases the underlying hardware resources and removes the VM from its current cluster, allowing Azure to select a new cluster that supports the desired size. After deallocation, the resize operation can succeed because the VM is no longer pinned to a specific host or cluster.

Answer

Delete the VM and recreate it from the image.

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Attach a new data disk first.

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Create an availability set for the VM.

Question 10

You want to preview what a Bicep deployment will change before you apply it to a resource group. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

az deployment group what-if. The `az deployment group what-if` command allows you to preview the changes a Bicep deployment will make to a resource group before actually applying them. It returns a list of resources that will be created, modified, or deleted, enabling you to validate the deployment's impact without committing any changes. This is the correct tool for a dry-run or validation scenario.

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az vm create

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az monitor metrics list

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az deployment group create --mode Complete

Question 11

Two application VMs are in the same Azure region. They must stay available during planned host maintenance, but the business does not require protection from a full datacenter outage. Which placement option should you use?

Accepted Answer

Availability set. An availability set distributes VMs across multiple fault domains (up to 3) and update domains (up to 20) within a single Azure datacenter. This ensures that during planned host maintenance, only one update domain is taken offline at a time, keeping the application VMs available. Since the requirement does not include protection from a full datacenter outage, an availability set is the correct and cost-effective placement option.

Answer

Availability zone

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Shared disk

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Snapshot set

Question 12

You deploy a Windows Server VM and need to run several PowerShell commands after deployment without signing in to the VM. Which Azure feature should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use the Custom Script Extension on the VM.. The Custom Script Extension (CSE) is the correct Azure feature because it allows you to run PowerShell or Bash scripts on a VM after deployment without requiring interactive sign-in. It executes the script via the Azure VM Agent, which runs as a local system process, making it ideal for post-deployment configuration tasks like installing software or running commands.

Answer

Put the VM in an availability zone.

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Attach a managed identity and rely on Azure Policy.

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Create a snapshot before startup.

Question 13

Two app VMs must stay available during planned host maintenance in the same region. Datacenter-level redundancy is not required, but the VMs should be spread across update domains. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Availability set. An availability set logically groups VMs to protect against planned maintenance events by distributing them across up to 3 fault domains and 20 update domains. This ensures that during host maintenance, only one update domain is taken offline at a time, keeping the other VMs available. Since datacenter-level redundancy is not required, an availability set is the correct choice.

Answer

Availability zone

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Azure Backup

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Managed disk

Question 14

A customer runs two Windows VMs in a region that does not support availability zones. The app can lose one VM but must keep running through planned maintenance and a single host failure. Which deployment pattern should you use?

Accepted Answer

Place both VMs in an availability set.. An availability set ensures that VMs are placed on different fault domains (separate physical hardware) and update domains (separate maintenance batches). This protects against both a single host failure and planned Azure maintenance, meeting the requirement that the app can lose one VM but keep running.

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Use a single-instance deployment and add more backup jobs.

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Use availability zones because they always exist in every region.

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Put both VMs on the same dedicated host to avoid migration during maintenance.

Question 15

You need to resize a production VM from Standard_D2s_v5 to Standard_D4s_v5 by using Azure CLI. `az vm list-vm-resize-options` shows the target size, but `az vm resize` fails while the VM is running. Which action should you take first?

Accepted Answer

Run `az vm deallocate`, then resize the VM, then start it again.. Resizing a VM to a different size often requires the VM to be in a deallocated state, especially when the new size is in a different hardware cluster or when the VM is currently running and the resize operation fails. The `az vm deallocate` command releases the underlying hardware resources, allowing the VM to be resized to any available size, including Standard_D4s_v5, and then you can start it again. This is a common requirement for production VMs when live resizing is not supported or fails.

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Run `az vm stop`, then resize the VM.

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Run `az vm restart`, then resize the VM.

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Run `az vm generalize`, then recreate the VM from the image.