AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Test 7 — 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?

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

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 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 4

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.. 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 5

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 6

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 7

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 8

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 9

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. 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 10

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 11

A developer wants to publish an internet-facing web application from source code. The solution must support built-in HTTPS, deployment slots for testing, and autoscale. The team does not want to manage servers. Which Azure service should the administrator recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure App Service. Azure App Service is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed platform for hosting web applications from source code, with built-in support for HTTPS via TLS/SSL certificates, deployment slots for staging and testing, and autoscale capabilities. It eliminates server management, aligning with the requirement for a PaaS (Platform as a Service) solution that handles infrastructure, patching, and scaling automatically.

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Azure Container Instances

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Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets

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Azure Bastion

Question 12

A build pipeline starts a containerized data-processing job every evening. Each run finishes in under 20 minutes, does not need persistent servers, and never receives inbound traffic. Which compute service best fits this workload?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Instances. Azure Container Instances (ACI) is the best fit because it allows you to run a containerized job directly in Azure without provisioning or managing any underlying infrastructure. The workload is short-lived (under 20 minutes), requires no persistent servers, and has no inbound traffic, which aligns perfectly with ACI's pay-per-second billing and ability to start containers on demand from a build pipeline.

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Azure App Service

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Azure Virtual Machines

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Azure Kubernetes Service

Question 13

A Linux VM deployed from a custom image shows only a black screen after reboot, and SSH never becomes available. The administrator needs to inspect the startup process without logging into the OS. Which two Azure features should be used? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Boot diagnostics. Boot diagnostics captures serial console output and screenshots of the VM during boot, allowing you to see kernel panics, driver failures, or bootloader errors even when the OS is unresponsive. Azure Serial Console provides a text-based console connection to the VM at the hypervisor layer, enabling interactive troubleshooting of the boot process (e.g., GRUB recovery, initramfs issues) without requiring network connectivity or SSH.

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Azure Site Recovery

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VM application health extension

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Azure Backup restore point

Question 14

A customer-facing application runs on two Azure VMs. The business wants the application to stay available even if one datacenter in the Azure region has an outage. Which availability option should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Availability zones. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying the two VMs into different zones, the application remains available if one entire datacenter fails, meeting the requirement for datacenter-level fault tolerance.

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Availability set

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Proximity placement group

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Azure Load Balancer

Question 15

A stateless customer portal runs on Azure VMs and must keep serving traffic if an entire datacenter in the region fails. The operations team also wants the portal to add and remove instances automatically during daily spikes without managing a Kubernetes cluster. Which two Azure compute capabilities should the administrator configure? Select two.

Accepted Answer

Deploy the portal instances across availability zones.. Availability zones protect against a full datacenter failure by distributing VM instances across physically separate datacenters within a region. This ensures that if one datacenter goes down, the portal continues serving traffic from the other zones. Combined with a load balancer, this provides high availability for stateless workloads.

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Place the VMs in an availability set within a single datacenter.

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Create a proximity placement group for the portal VMs.

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Use a single larger VM with premium managed disks.