AZ-204 Develop Azure compute solutions Practice Test 13 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You have an Azure Function app that uses a Service Bus queue trigger. The function processes messages, but sometimes it takes longer than 5 minutes to process a single message. You notice that the message is processed multiple times. What is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

The lock duration on the queue is shorter than the processing time. The most likely cause is that the lock duration on the Service Bus queue is shorter than the time required to process the message. When the lock expires, the message becomes visible to other consumers (or the same consumer on retry), causing it to be processed multiple times. The default lock duration for a Service Bus queue is 30 seconds, and if processing exceeds that, the message will be re-delivered.

Answer

The function's timeout is set to 5 minutes

Answer

The maxDeliveryCount is set too high

Answer

The queue has sessions enabled

Question 2

You are deploying a microservice to Azure Container Apps. The service requires a custom domain and SSL/TLS certificate. Which resource should you configure to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Apps environment with a custom domain and certificate attached. Azure Container Apps allows you to attach a custom domain and upload an SSL/TLS certificate directly at the environment level, which is the correct approach for securing a microservice with a custom domain. This configuration ensures that the Container App responds to HTTPS requests on your domain without needing an additional front-end service.

Answer

Azure Front Door with a custom domain

Answer

Azure API Management in front of the Container App

Answer

Azure Application Gateway with SSL termination

Question 3

You are developing a web application that runs on Azure App Service. The application needs to store session state. Which Azure service provides the best performance and reliability for session state storage?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cache for Redis. Azure Cache for Redis provides the best performance and reliability for session state storage because it is an in-memory data store with sub-millisecond latency, designed for high-throughput, low-latency scenarios like session caching. It supports session state providers natively in ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core, ensuring fast reads and writes for each user request without the overhead of disk I/O or network latency associated with other storage options.

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure Blob Storage

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Question 4

You have an Azure Function app that uses a Service Bus queue trigger. The function processes messages, but sometimes it takes longer than 5 minutes to process a single message. You notice that the message is processed multiple times. What is the most likely cause?

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

Accepted Answer

Enable checkpointing in the function code. Checkpointing in Azure Event Hubs stores the offset of the last successfully processed event in a durable store (e.g., Azure Blob Storage). When the function restarts or scales, it resumes from that checkpoint, preventing reprocessing of already-handled events. Without checkpointing, the default behavior may start from the earliest offset or use the `latest` position, leading to duplicate processing.

Answer

Increase the maxRetries per event

Answer

Increase the event batch size

Answer

Decrease the prefetch count

Question 5

You are designing a solution that uses Azure Container Instances (ACI) to run a batch job. The job must run only once a day and should not incur costs when idle. Which configuration should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use a scheduled job that creates a container group with restart policy Never and delete after completion. Azure Container Instances (ACI) supports a restart policy of 'Never' for one-off batch jobs, and you can orchestrate the creation and deletion of the container group using a scheduled job (e.g., Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions, or a cron-based trigger). This ensures the container runs exactly once per day and incurs no cost when idle, as the container group is deleted after completion.

Answer

Use Azure Kubernetes Service with a node pool that scales to zero

Answer

Deploy a container group with a restart policy of Always

Answer

Use Azure Container Apps with scale-to-zero minimum replicas

Question 6

Your company develops a microservices application deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). You need to enable secure communication between services using managed identities. Which Azure service should you use to manage the identities and access control for the pods?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Entra Workload ID. Microsoft Entra Workload ID (formerly Azure AD Workload Identity) is the correct choice because it integrates with Kubernetes to automatically project an Microsoft Entra ID-managed identity into each pod. This allows pods to authenticate to Azure resources (e.g., Key Vault, Storage) without managing secrets, using federated identity credentials that map a Kubernetes service account to an Microsoft Entra ID application or user-assigned managed identity.

Answer

Azure Service Bus

Answer

Azure Key Vault

Answer

Azure Policy

Question 7

You are designing a serverless application using Azure Functions. The function must process messages from an Azure Service Bus queue. The processing time for each message can vary from a few seconds to several minutes. You need to minimize costs while ensuring that messages are processed in a timely manner. Which hosting plan should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Premium plan. The Premium plan is correct because it supports long execution times (up to 60 minutes by default, configurable to unlimited), always-warm instances to avoid cold starts, and virtual network integration—all while providing predictable pricing and scaling. This meets the requirement of processing messages that can take several minutes without incurring the cold-start penalties or execution-time limits of the Consumption plan.

Answer

Container Instances plan

Answer

App Service plan

Answer

Consumption plan

Question 8

You need to deploy a web application to Azure App Service. The application requires a custom domain name and SSL/TLS certificate. You want to automate the deployment using Azure CLI. Which command should you use to upload the SSL certificate to the App Service?

Accepted Answer

az webapp config ssl upload. The `az webapp config ssl upload` command is the Azure CLI command used to upload an SSL/TLS certificate (in .pfx format) to an existing Azure App Service web app. This command binds the certificate to the app, enabling HTTPS for custom domains.

Answer

az appservice web config ssl upload

Answer

az appservice certificate import

Answer

az webapp certificate upload

Question 9

Your company runs a batch processing job on Azure Batch. The job processes large datasets and requires access to Azure Storage. You need to ensure that the compute nodes can securely access the storage account without exposing credentials. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Managed identity for the Batch pool. Managed identities for Azure resources allow compute nodes to authenticate to Azure Storage without storing credentials. Option A is wrong because Microsoft Entra ID service principals require managing credentials and are not the simplest approach for Batch compute nodes to access storage. Option B is wrong because storage account access keys are shared secrets that should not be exposed. Option D is wrong because shared access signatures (SAS) tokens can be exposed and need to be managed.

Answer

Azure AD service principal

Answer

Storage account access keys

Answer

Shared access signatures (SAS)

Question 10

You are developing an Azure Functions app that processes large files from Azure Blob Storage. When a file is uploaded, the function triggers and reads the entire file into memory, causing high memory usage. You need to optimize the function to handle large files efficiently. Which approach should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Stream the blob content directly to the processing logic. Streaming the blob content directly to the processing logic avoids loading the entire file into memory at once. The Azure Blob Storage SDK supports reading blob content as a stream (e.g., using `BlobClient.OpenReadAsync()`), which allows the function to process data in chunks, significantly reducing memory pressure for large files.

Answer

Use a byte array to read the blob in chunks

Answer

Read the blob content into a temporary file on disk

Answer

Increase the memory allocation of the function app

Question 11

You deploy a containerized application to Azure Container Instances (ACI). The application needs to store configuration settings that might change at runtime. You need to update the configuration without redeploying the container. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Mount an Azure Files share and update the configuration file. To update configuration settings at runtime without redeploying the container in Azure Container Instances (ACI), you should mount an Azure Files share. The application can read its configuration from a file stored on this share. When configuration changes are needed, you can update the file directly on the Azure Files share. The container itself does not need to be redeployed or restarted, provided the application is designed to periodically re-read the configuration file or react to file changes. This approach allows for dynamic configuration updates independent of the container lifecycle.

Answer

Use environment variables in the container group

Answer

Use Application Settings in the container

Answer

Modify the container image to include new configuration

Question 12

Your company has a multi-tier application running on Azure Virtual Machines. The application experiences high CPU usage during peak hours. You need to implement autoscaling for the virtual machine scale set based on CPU usage. The scaling should be aggressive when CPU exceeds 80% and conservative when CPU drops below 30%. Which scaling rule configuration should you use?

Accepted Answer

Scale out when CPU > 80%, scale in when CPU < 30%. The question explicitly requires aggressive scaling when CPU exceeds 80% and conservative scaling when CPU drops below 30%. The scale-out threshold of 80% triggers rapid addition of instances to handle high load, while the scale-in threshold of 30% ensures instances are removed only when utilization is consistently low, preventing premature scale-in and thrashing. This matches the exact thresholds specified in the requirement.

Answer

Scale out when CPU > 50%, scale in when CPU < 20%

Answer

Scale out when CPU > 90%, scale in when CPU < 10%

Answer

Scale out when CPU > 70%, scale in when CPU < 70%

Question 13

You develop an Azure Durable Functions application that orchestrates a series of activities. The orchestrator function calls activity functions that perform long-running tasks. You need to ensure that the orchestrator function can handle transient errors and retry failed activity functions. Which feature should you use?

Accepted Answer

Built-in retry policies in Durable Functions. Durable Functions provides built-in retry policies that can be configured directly on activity function calls within orchestrator functions. This allows you to specify parameters such as max retry count, backoff interval, and retry timeout, enabling the orchestrator to automatically retry failed activities without custom code or external dependencies.

Answer

Polly library for retry logic

Answer

Application Insights alerts

Answer

Azure Storage queue message retries

Question 14

You are deploying an application to Azure App Service that requires a custom startup script to initialize the environment. Where should you place the startup script in the application code?

Accepted Answer

As a startup command in the App Service configuration. Azure App Service allows you to specify a custom startup command or script in the App Service configuration (under 'General settings' or via the Azure CLI with `--startup-file`). This startup command runs before the application starts, enabling you to initialize the environment, run pre-deployment tasks, or set up dependencies. Placing the startup script in the configuration ensures it is executed by the App Service platform, which handles the runtime environment (Windows or Linux) and integrates with the application lifecycle.

Answer

In the 'web.config' file

Answer

In a 'docker-compose.yml' file

Answer

In the root of the application code as 'startup.sh'

Question 15

Which TWO options are valid ways to authenticate an Azure Functions app to Azure Storage when using a managed identity? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Enable system-assigned managed identity on the function app and grant it the 'Storage Blob Data Contributor' role. Options A and D are correct because both describe using a managed identity (system-assigned in A, user-assigned in D) to authenticate the function app to Azure Storage, which is the intended passwordless approach. In A, enabling a system-assigned managed identity on the function app and granting it the 'Storage Blob Data Contributor' role gives the identity the necessary RBAC permissions to access blob data. In D, creating a user-assigned managed identity, assigning it to the function app, and granting it the 'Storage Queue Data Contributor' role similarly provides the required RBAC permissions for queue data access. Options B and C are not valid managed-identity authentication methods because SAS tokens and storage account access keys are shared secrets, not identity-based credentials. Option E is also incorrect because the default AzureWebJobsStorage connection string typically relies on an account key or other connection-string credentials, not a managed identity.

Answer

Generate a shared access signature (SAS) token and include it in the connection string

Answer

Use the storage account access key in the connection string

Answer

Use the default AzureWebJobsStorage connection string from the function app settings