AZ-204 Develop Azure compute solutions Practice Test 8 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An App Service application uses a staging deployment slot connected to a staging database and a production slot connected to a production database. Both use an app setting called 'DbConnectionString'. After a slot swap, the production slot starts using the staging database connection string. What configuration change prevents this?

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

Accepted Answer

Mark the 'DbConnectionString' app setting as a deployment slot setting (sticky) so it remains bound to its slot across all swaps. Marking the 'DbConnectionString' app setting as a deployment slot setting (also called a sticky setting) ensures that the setting remains bound to its slot during a swap. When a slot swap occurs, Azure App Service automatically moves non-sticky app settings and connection strings to the target slot, but sticky settings are excluded from the swap and stay with their original slot. This prevents the production slot from accidentally picking up the staging database connection string after the swap.

Answer

Store the connection string in Azure Key Vault and reference it via a Key Vault reference in both slots

Answer

Use different app setting names for each slot (e.g., 'StagingDbConnectionString' and 'ProductionDbConnectionString') and swap code manually

Answer

Disable slot swaps and use a CI/CD pipeline to deploy directly to production instead

Question 2

Arrange the steps to deploy an Azure App Service using Azure CLI in the correct order.

Accepted Answer

Create resource group, then App Service plan, then web app, then deploy code, then verify. To deploy an App Service, first create a resource group, then an App Service plan, then the web app, deploy code, and finally verify.

Answer

Create App Service plan, then resource group, then web app, then deploy code, then verify

Answer

Create resource group, then web app, then App Service plan, then deploy code, then verify

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Deploy code, then resource group, then App Service plan, then web app, then verify

Question 3

Arrange the steps to implement Azure Functions with a Cosmos DB trigger in the correct order.

Accepted Answer

Create Cosmos DB, then create Function App, then add trigger binding, then write code, then test.. First create Cosmos DB, then Function App, add trigger binding, write code, test.

Answer

Create Function App, then create Cosmos DB, then add trigger binding, then write code, then test.

Answer

Create Cosmos DB, then create Function App, then write code, then add trigger binding, then test.

Answer

Create Cosmos DB, then create Function App, then add trigger binding, then test, then write code.

Question 4

Match each Azure service to its primary purpose.

Accepted Answer

Azure Functions: Run event-driven code without managing servers. The correct matches are: Azure Functions for serverless event-driven code, Azure App Service for hosting web apps/APIs, Azure Logic Apps for workflow automation, and Azure Cosmos DB for globally distributed NoSQL database. Common confusions involve swapping the purposes of Azure Functions and Azure App Service.

Answer

Azure Functions: Host web applications, REST APIs, and mobile backends

Answer

Azure App Service: Run event-driven code without managing servers

Question 5

Match each Azure security feature to its function.

Accepted Answer

Azure Security Center: Unified security management and threat protection across hybrid cloud workloads. Azure Security Center provides unified security management and threat protection; Azure Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM/SOAR; Azure Key Vault safeguards keys and secrets; Microsoft Entra ID manages identity and access. Common confusions include mixing Security Center with Sentinel or Sentinel with Microsoft Entra ID.

Answer

Azure Security Center: Cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution

Answer

Azure Sentinel: Identity and access management service

Question 6

You are developing a solution that processes orders from an e-commerce website. The order processing logic is CPU-intensive and can take up to 30 seconds per order. You need to ensure that the web front-end remains responsive and that orders are processed reliably. What should you use?

Accepted Answer

Add orders to Azure Queue Storage and process them using a background worker role.. Azure Queue Storage provides a reliable, asynchronous message-passing mechanism that decouples the CPU-intensive order processing from the web front-end. By adding orders to a queue and processing them with a background worker (e.g., a WebJob or Worker Role), the web front-end remains responsive, and the queue ensures at-least-once delivery and durability, even if the worker fails or restarts.

Answer

Use Azure WebJobs to process orders in the same App Service plan.

Answer

Use Azure Service Bus Queues with sessions for order processing.

Answer

Use Azure Functions with Durable Functions to manage order processing state.

Question 7

You are building a serverless application using Azure Functions. The function processes large CSV files uploaded to Azure Blob Storage. Each file can be up to 100 MB. The function must parse the file and insert each row into a SQL database. You need to minimize cold start latency and ensure the function can handle the processing within the default timeout. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Use a dedicated App Service plan with Always On enabled.. A Dedicated App Service plan with Always On enabled eliminates cold starts by keeping the function host loaded continuously, and it provides a default timeout of 30 minutes (configurable up to 230 minutes), which is sufficient for processing 100 MB CSV files. The Consumption plan has a default timeout of 5 minutes (max 10 minutes), which may not be enough for large file processing, and it suffers from cold starts. The Premium plan reduces cold starts with pre-warmed instances but is not necessary when a Dedicated plan with Always On is more cost-effective and meets the requirements.

Answer

Use the Premium plan with pre-warmed instances.

Answer

Use Durable Functions to split processing into smaller chunks.

Answer

Use the Consumption plan and increase the function timeout to 10 minutes.

Question 8

You are deploying a web application to Azure App Service. The application needs to read configuration settings that vary by deployment environment (development, staging, production). You want to minimize application changes and leverage Azure services. What should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure App Service application settings.. Azure App Service application settings are the correct choice because they are natively supported by the App Service platform, allowing you to define key-value pairs that are injected as environment variables at runtime. This approach requires no application code changes, as the settings are automatically available via standard configuration APIs (e.g., `Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable` in .NET or `process.env` in Node.js), and you can configure different values per deployment slot (e.g., development, staging, production) without redeploying the application.

Answer

Use Azure Key Vault secrets for configuration values.

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Use Azure DevOps variable groups and inject them at build time.

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Use Azure App Configuration with feature flags.

Question 9

You are developing a microservices application on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). One of the services needs to securely access Azure SQL Database without storing connection strings in the application code. You need to use managed identities. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Enable Azure AD Pod Identity and assign a managed identity to the pod.. Microsoft Entra ID Pod Identity allows you to assign an Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) managed identity directly to a pod in AKS. The pod can then use that identity to authenticate to Azure SQL Database without storing any connection strings or secrets in the code. This is the recommended approach for pod-level managed identity access to Azure resources.

Answer

Store the connection string in Azure Key Vault and use the Key Vault FlexVolume driver.

Answer

Use the AKS cluster's managed identity to access Azure SQL.

Answer

Create a service principal and use its credentials in the pod.

Question 10

You are designing a solution that uses Azure Container Instances (ACI) to run a batch job that processes images. The job is triggered by a message in Azure Queue Storage. Each image takes about 5 minutes to process. You need to ensure that the container runs only when there are messages in the queue and scales automatically. What should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Logic Apps with a Container Instances connector.. Azure Logic Apps provides a serverless workflow that can be triggered by a queue message (via the Azure Queue Storage connector) and then use the Container Instances connector to start a container group. This ensures the container runs only when messages are present and scales automatically by creating a new container instance per message, matching the requirement for event-driven, on-demand execution without idle costs.

Answer

Use Azure Functions with a custom container and queue trigger.

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Use Azure Batch to process the images in a pool of VMs.

Answer

Deploy the image processing job as a pod in Azure Kubernetes Service.

Question 11

You are developing an API using Azure API Management (APIM). The API is backed by an Azure Function that processes requests. You need to implement caching for responses that are expensive to compute. The cache should expire after 10 minutes. What should you configure in APIM?

Accepted Answer

Add a cache-lookup and cache-store policy to the API operation.. Azure API Management (APIM) provides built-in caching policies—`cache-lookup` and `cache-store`—that can be applied directly to an API operation. These policies cache the response from the backend (the Azure Function) and respect the `cache-control` header or a specified duration, such as 10 minutes, without requiring an external cache. This is the simplest and most direct way to implement response caching for expensive-to-compute operations within APIM.

Answer

Configure Azure Redis Cache as an external cache in APIM.

Answer

Implement response caching in the Azure Function code.

Answer

Use Azure Front Door to cache responses.

Question 12

You are developing an application that runs on Azure App Service. The application needs to store session state. The session state must be shared across multiple instances of the app and survive restarts. You need to choose a session state provider. What should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Redis Cache as a session state provider.. Azure Redis Cache provides a distributed, in-memory data store that can be shared across multiple instances of an App Service application and persists data through restarts. It is the recommended session state provider for Azure App Service when high availability and scalability are required, as it stores session data externally from the application's memory.

Answer

Use Azure Table Storage for session state.

Answer

Use a SQL Database to store session data.

Answer

Use the in-memory session state provider.

Question 13

You are developing a web application that allows users to upload images. The application runs on Azure App Service. You need to ensure that uploaded images are stored in Azure Blob Storage and that the application remains responsive. What should you use?

Accepted Answer

Generate a SAS token for the user to upload directly to Blob Storage.. Generating a SAS token allows the user's browser to upload images directly to Azure Blob Storage without routing the data through the App Service. This keeps the web application responsive by offloading the upload workload to Azure Storage, avoiding blocking the App Service's limited HTTP request threads and reducing latency.

Answer

Upload the image to the App Service and then copy it to Blob Storage.

Answer

Use Azure Files for image storage.

Answer

Make the Blob container public for anonymous uploads.

Question 14

You are developing a solution that uses Azure Functions to process events from Azure Event Grid. The function must handle events reliably. Which TWO options should you implement?

Accepted Answer

Enable retry policy on the Event Grid subscription.. Event Grid subscriptions support automatic retry policies that can be configured to retry event delivery on transient failures, ensuring reliable processing. Option D is correct because a dead-letter destination (e.g., a storage blob) captures events that cannot be delivered after exhausting retries, preventing data loss and enabling later analysis.

Answer

Use Durable Functions for orchestration.

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Implement manual checkpointing in the function code.

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Use a queue trigger instead of an Event Grid trigger.

Question 15

You are developing a web application that will be deployed to Azure App Service. You need to configure automatic scaling based on CPU usage. Which TWO settings should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Configure a scale in condition based on CPU percentage.. Configuring a scale-in condition based on CPU percentage allows the App Service plan to automatically reduce the number of instances when CPU usage drops below a defined threshold, which is essential for cost optimization. Option E is correct because configuring a scale-out condition based on CPU percentage enables the platform to automatically add instances when CPU usage exceeds a threshold, ensuring the application can handle increased load. Together, these two settings define the autoscale rules that react to CPU metrics, which is the core requirement for CPU-based automatic scaling.

Answer

Configure authentication for the scaling endpoint.

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Set the minimum and maximum instance count.

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Set the Always On setting to On.