AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A development team needs to run a Linux container for about 12 minutes each time a request is received. The team does not want to manage a server, cluster, or virtual machine. Which Azure service should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Instances. Azure Container Instances (ACI) is the correct choice because it allows the team to run a Linux container directly in Azure without managing any underlying infrastructure, such as servers, clusters, or virtual machines. ACI is ideal for short-lived, event-driven workloads like this 12-minute request-based container, as it supports rapid startup and automatic shutdown, aligning with the 'serverless' requirement.

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Azure Kubernetes Service

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Azure Virtual Machines

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Azure App Service

Question 2

A build pipeline must run a Linux container for about 10 minutes per request. The team does not want to manage servers or a Kubernetes cluster. Which Azure service should the administrator choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Instances. Azure Container Instances (ACI) is the correct choice because it allows you to run a Linux container directly on Azure without managing any underlying servers or orchestrators. The 10-minute execution time fits perfectly within ACI's per-second billing model, and the service automatically starts and stops the container on demand, making it ideal for short-lived, ephemeral workloads like build pipeline tasks.

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Azure Virtual Machines

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Azure App Service

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Azure Kubernetes Service

Question 3

A reporting application needs an Azure VM with at least 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of RAM. The workload is memory-heavy, and the team wants a reasonable starting point. Which VM family should the administrator choose?

Accepted Answer

E-series. The E-series (memory-optimized) VM family is designed for memory-intensive workloads, offering a high memory-to-CPU ratio. With a requirement of at least 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of RAM, the E-series provides the necessary memory capacity (e.g., E8s_v3 offers 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB RAM) as a reasonable starting point for a memory-heavy reporting application.

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B-series

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D-series

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F-series

Question 4

A platform team maintains a hardened Windows VM with IIS, an agent, and local configuration files. They need to deploy 40 identical VMs in two regions, preserve version history, and roll back quickly if a new image causes problems. Which two actions should they take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Generalize the source VM before capture by removing machine-specific state.. Option A is correct because generalizing the source VM with Sysprep (for Windows) removes machine-specific state like security identifiers (SIDs) and hostnames, making the VM suitable for creating a reusable, generalized image. This is a prerequisite for capturing an image that can be deployed to multiple VMs without conflicts. Without generalization, each VM would retain the original machine's identity, causing domain join and licensing issues.

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Place the target virtual machines in an availability set.

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Attach a user-assigned managed identity to the source VM.

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Enable boot diagnostics on the target virtual machines.

Question 5

A reporting server VM will run an analytics engine that uses a large in-memory cache. Required minimums are 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of RAM, and the workload benefits more from memory than from extra compute. Which Azure VM series is the best fit?

Accepted Answer

E-series, because it provides memory-optimized sizing for data-intensive workloads. The E-series (specifically Ev3, Esv3, or Ebsv5) is memory-optimized, offering the highest memory-to-vCPU ratio among Azure general-purpose families. With a requirement of 64 GiB RAM and only 8 vCPUs, the workload benefits more from memory than compute, making the E-series the best fit. D-series provides balanced ratios but not the memory density needed, while F-series and B-series are compute- or burst-oriented and lack sufficient memory per vCPU.

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B-series, because burstable credits handle temporary spikes economically

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D-series, because it balances general-purpose CPU and memory

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F-series, because it is optimized for high CPU throughput

Question 6

A support desk needs to reset the local administrator password on specific virtual machines by using the VMAccess extension and restart those VMs. They must not be able to resize the machines, change networking, or manage disks. What should the administrator create?

Accepted Answer

Create a custom role with only the required VM actions and assign it at the virtual machine scope. Option C is correct because the support desk needs only specific actions (reset local admin password via VMAccess extension and restart VMs) without permissions to resize, change networking, or manage disks. A custom role at the VM scope allows you to grant precisely the required Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/runCommand/action and Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/restart/action, while excluding broader management actions. This follows the principle of least privilege and prevents unintended modifications to other resources.

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Assign the Virtual Machine Contributor built-in role at the subscription scope

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Assign the Contributor role at the resource group scope

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Use an Azure Policy assignment to allow the VMAccess extension

Question 7

A reporting server will run an analytics engine that needs 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of RAM. Average CPU use is expected to stay moderate, but the workload is memory heavy and should not use a burstable SKU. Which two deployment choices best align with the requirement? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Select a memory-optimized VM family.. Option A is correct because the workload is memory heavy, and memory-optimized VM families (e.g., E-series) are designed with a higher memory-to-vCPU ratio to handle such workloads efficiently. Option B is correct because the requirement explicitly states 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of RAM, so selecting a size that meets these exact specifications is necessary, regardless of family, as long as it is not burstable.

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Choose a burstable B-series size to lower cost.

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Pick a compute-optimized F-series size because CPU use is only moderate.

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Select the smallest VM size that supports managed disks.

Question 8

Two workloads have different resilience requirements. Workload A must stay available if a single datacenter in the region fails. Workload B only needs protection from planned maintenance and a single hardware host failure. Which two deployment models should the administrator use? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Availability Zones for Workload A. Workload A requires protection against a full datacenter failure within a region. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across multiple zones ensures that if one zone (datacenter) fails, the workload remains available in another zone. Workload B only needs protection from planned maintenance and a single hardware host failure. An Availability Set distributes VMs across multiple fault domains (hardware hosts) and update domains (planned maintenance cycles), providing resilience against these specific failure scenarios without requiring zone-level separation.

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Virtual Machine Scale Set without zones

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Proximity Placement Group

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Single VM with premium SSD

Question 9

A business-critical application runs in a region that does not support availability zones. It uses two Azure VMs and must survive planned maintenance and a single host failure, but it does not need automatic scale-out. Which two actions should the administrator take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Place both VMs in the same availability set. Option A is correct because an availability set provides redundancy within a single region that does not support availability zones, protecting against both planned maintenance (via update domains) and host failures (via fault domains). By placing both VMs in the same availability set, Azure ensures they are distributed across multiple fault domains (up to 3) and update domains (up to 20), so a single hardware failure or planned maintenance event does not affect both VMs simultaneously.

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Deploy the VMs in separate availability zones

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Convert the workload to a single larger VM

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Put the VMs in a proximity placement group

Question 10

A team standardizes 30 Windows VMs for a line-of-business application. They install IIS, a monitoring agent, and baseline security settings on one reference VM. Future deployments must use that same build and be easy to version. Which Azure feature should the administrator create?

Accepted Answer

An image version in Azure Compute Gallery. B is correct because an image version in Azure Compute Gallery (formerly Shared Image Gallery) captures the entire VM configuration—including IIS, monitoring agent, and security settings—into a reusable, versioned image. This allows the team to deploy standardized VMs from the same build and easily manage updates by creating new image versions, meeting the requirements for consistency and versioning.

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A snapshot of the reference VM's OS disk

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An availability set for the reference VM

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A custom script extension on each new VM

Question 11

After applying a custom image, a Linux VM stops at a black screen before the sign-in prompt. The administrator cannot use RDP or SSH and needs the fastest way to inspect the boot process. Which two actions should they take? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Enable Boot diagnostics on the virtual machine.. Enabling Boot diagnostics on the virtual machine allows the administrator to capture serial console output and screenshots of the VM during boot. This is the fastest way to inspect the boot process without requiring network connectivity (RDP/SSH), as the serial log provides kernel-level messages and the screenshot shows the display state at the point of failure.

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Reimage the VM immediately to a clean managed disk.

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Increase the VM size to a larger SKU.

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Reset the network interface configuration from the portal.

Question 12

After a custom image is applied, a VM restarts to a black screen and never reaches the login prompt. The administrator needs the fastest way to inspect what happened during boot without logging into the guest OS. What should be enabled or reviewed first?

Accepted Answer

Boot diagnostics. Boot diagnostics captures serial console output and screenshots of the VM during boot, allowing you to inspect boot failures like a black screen without guest OS access. This is the fastest method because it provides immediate, out-of-band visibility into the boot process, including kernel panics or driver issues, without requiring RDP or SSH connectivity.

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Azure Monitor metric alert

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VM extension status

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Network Watcher IP flow verify

Question 13

A customer-facing application has two goals: it must keep running if one datacenter in the region fails, and it must be able to scale out automatically during daily peaks. Which two Azure compute choices best match those requirements? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Deploy the workload across Availability Zones. Option A is correct because deploying across Availability Zones provides datacenter-level fault tolerance: each zone is an isolated physical datacenter with independent power, cooling, and networking. If one zone fails, the application continues running in the other zones. Option C is correct because a Virtual Machine Scale Set with autoscale automatically adjusts the number of VM instances based on CPU or memory metrics, enabling the application to scale out during daily peaks and scale in during off-peak hours.

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Place all instances in one Availability Set

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Run a single VM behind a load balancer

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Use a proximity placement group

Question 14

A development team wants to publish an internet-facing application directly from source code. The solution must support built-in HTTPS, deployment slots for safe testing, and autoscale as demand changes. Which two choices should the administrator select? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Use Azure App Service.. Azure App Service is a fully managed platform for building, deploying, and scaling web apps. It natively supports publishing directly from source code (via continuous deployment from GitHub, Azure Repos, or Bitbucket), built-in HTTPS (with automatic certificate management), deployment slots for staging and swapping, and autoscale based on metrics or schedules. These features directly satisfy all the requirements stated in the question.

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Use Azure Container Instances for the public application.

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Deploy the app on a virtual machine scale set.

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Use an availability set for the application instances.

Question 15

An application runs on two VMs in one Azure region. The business wants protection from a single hardware host failure and planned maintenance, but it does not require protection from an entire datacenter outage. Which two choices should the administrator make? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Place both VMs in an availability set.. An availability set distributes VMs across multiple fault domains (hardware hosts) and update domains within a single Azure datacenter. This protects against a single hardware host failure and planned maintenance (update domains ensure VMs are not rebooted simultaneously during updates). Option B is correct because it provides this isolation without requiring protection from an entire datacenter outage.

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Place the workload in a single VM with a premium SSD.

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Use availability zones across the region.

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Replicate the VMs to another region with Azure Site Recovery.