AZ-204 Develop Azure compute solutions Practice Test 9 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company deploys a microservices application on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). They need to automatically scale individual microservices based on custom metrics (e.g., queue depth). Which feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) is the correct choice because it automatically scales the number of pod replicas in a deployment or replica set based on observed metrics, including custom metrics like queue depth. HPA queries the Kubernetes Metrics API, which can be extended with custom metrics adapters (e.g., Prometheus Adapter) to support application-specific metrics, enabling fine-grained scaling for each microservice.

Answer

Virtual Node

Answer

Vertical Pod Autoscaler

Answer

Cluster Autoscaler

Question 2

A team develops an Azure Functions app that processes IoT telemetry. They notice cold start latency is impacting performance. The function uses the Consumption plan. Which action reduces cold starts most effectively?

Accepted Answer

Change to Premium plan with pre-warmed instances. Premium plan keeps instances warm, reducing cold starts. Option A is wrong because using durable functions adds orchestration overhead. Option B is wrong because increasing timeout doesn't affect cold start. Option D is wrong because App Service plan also reduces cold starts but Premium plan is more cost-effective for variable load.

Answer

Use Durable Functions for long-running workflows

Answer

Increase the function timeout to maximum

Answer

Use a dedicated App Service plan

Question 3

You need to deploy a containerized application to Azure that must be restarted automatically if it crashes. The solution should minimize management overhead. Which compute service should you use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Instances. Azure Container Instances (ACI) is the correct choice because it provides a serverless container platform that automatically restarts containers if they crash when configured with a restart policy of 'Always' or 'OnFailure'. This minimizes management overhead by eliminating the need to manage underlying infrastructure, orchestration, or virtual machines, making it ideal for simple, stateless containerized applications that require automatic recovery.

Answer

Azure Functions

Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines

Question 4

A company runs a critical web app on Azure App Service that must handle traffic spikes without downtime. They set up autoscaling rules based on CPU percentage. However, during a spike, the app becomes unresponsive before new instances are added. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Use pre-warming instances with a scheduled scaling rule. Option C is correct because pre-warming instances with a scheduled scaling rule ensures that additional instances are already running and ready to handle traffic before the CPU spike occurs. This avoids the cold-start delay inherent in reactive autoscaling, where new instances take time to provision and initialize, causing unresponsiveness during rapid spikes.

Answer

Switch to memory-based autoscaling

Answer

Decrease the scale-in cooldown period

Answer

Increase the CPU percentage threshold for scale-out

Question 5

You are designing a solution to process thousands of images uploaded to Azure Blob Storage. Each image must be resized and metadata extracted. The processing must be serverless and cost-effective. Which Azure service should you use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Functions with Blob Storage trigger. Azure Functions with a Blob Storage trigger is the correct choice because it provides a serverless, event-driven compute model that automatically scales to process thousands of images as they are uploaded to Blob Storage. The trigger binds directly to a blob container, invoking a function for each new blob, which allows you to resize images and extract metadata without managing infrastructure, making it both cost-effective and efficient for high-throughput workloads.

Answer

Azure Container Instances with Blob Storage SDK

Answer

Azure Logic Apps with Blob Storage connector

Answer

Azure Event Grid with Webhook to a custom service

Question 6

A company has an Azure App Service web app that occasionally returns 500 errors. You need to diagnose the root cause without impacting production traffic. Which feature should you use?

Accepted Answer

Deployment slots. Deployment slots allow you to route a copy of your production traffic to a staging slot for debugging without affecting the live site. By swapping the staging slot into production after testing, you can reproduce and diagnose 500 errors in an isolated environment. This feature provides zero-downtime deployment and traffic routing, making it ideal for diagnosing production issues safely.

Answer

Kudu console

Answer

Application Insights

Answer

Autoscaling rules

Question 7

You are migrating an on-premises .NET Framework app to Azure. The app uses Windows authentication and requires persistent storage. You want to minimize rework. Which Azure compute service should you choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure App Service on Windows. Azure App Service on Windows (D) supports Windows authentication natively via its built-in integration with Azure Active Directory and on-premises Active Directory through Azure AD Domain Services or hybrid identity setups. It also provides persistent storage options like Azure Files or blob storage attached to the web app, minimizing rework by allowing the existing .NET Framework app to run with minimal code changes in a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment.

Answer

Azure Spring Apps

Answer

Azure Functions

Answer

Azure Container Instances

Question 8

A company uses Azure Functions to process messages from Azure Service Bus. The function currently uses the Consumption plan. They notice that during high load, messages are processed slowly due to scaling latency. Which change would improve throughput most?

Accepted Answer

Switch to the Premium plan. The Premium plan for Azure Functions provides pre-warmed instances and faster scaling, eliminating the cold start and scaling latency inherent in the Consumption plan. This directly addresses the bottleneck during high load by ensuring that new instances are allocated instantly, thereby improving message processing throughput from Service Bus.

Answer

Set the maximum instance count to 20

Answer

Increase the function's batch size to 100

Answer

Enable Service Bus sessions

Question 9

You need to deploy a microservice that runs a long-running background job (up to 30 minutes). The job should not be affected by App Service recycling. Which Azure technology should you use?

Accepted Answer

Azure WebJobs with Always On enabled. Option B is correct because Azure WebJobs with Always On enabled ensures the WebJob runs continuously on a dedicated App Service instance, preventing it from being unloaded during idle periods or App Service recycling. This allows the long-running background job (up to 30 minutes) to complete without interruption, as the WebJob runs in the same process as the web app and is not subject to the 5-minute timeout of the Consumption plan.

Answer

Azure Automation Runbook

Answer

Azure Functions (Consumption plan)

Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question 10

A company is designing a serverless application using Azure Functions. They need to orchestrate multiple functions in a workflow, handle errors, and manage state. Which TWO features should they use?

Accepted Answer

Fan-out/Fan-in pattern. Option A is correct because the Fan-out/Fan-in pattern is a core feature of Durable Functions that allows you to execute multiple functions in parallel (fan-out) and then aggregate their results (fan-in). This pattern is essential for orchestrating workflows, handling errors via retry policies, and managing state across function executions. Durable Functions provide built-in state management and checkpointing, making them ideal for serverless orchestration scenarios.

Answer

Azure Event Grid

Answer

Azure Logic Apps

Answer

Azure Data Factory

Question 11

A company deploys a containerized application on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). They need to ensure high availability and disaster recovery across regions. Which THREE actions should they take?

Accepted Answer

Configure Pod Disruption Budgets. Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) are correct because they ensure that a minimum number of pods remain available during voluntary disruptions, such as node maintenance or cluster upgrades. In a multi-region AKS deployment for high availability and disaster recovery, PDBs protect application uptime by preventing too many replicas from being taken down simultaneously, which is critical for maintaining service continuity across regional failovers.

Answer

Use Azure Front Door for global load balancing

Answer

Enable Cluster Autoscaler

Question 12

You are developing an Azure App Service web app that must authenticate users via Microsoft Entra ID. Which TWO components are required to set up authentication?

Accepted Answer

Client ID and Client Secret. To authenticate users via Microsoft Entra ID in an Azure App Service web app, you must register the app in Entra ID (Option C) to establish an identity and configure authentication. The Client ID and Client Secret (Option B) are then used as credentials in the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow to verify the app's identity and obtain tokens. These two components are mandatory for the standard OpenID Connect authentication flow.

Answer

A managed identity

Answer

An Azure AD B2C tenant

Answer

Azure Front Door

Question 13

You are developing an Azure Functions app that processes orders. The function must scale out automatically during peak hours but should not incur costs when idle. Which hosting plan should you use?

Accepted Answer

Consumption plan. The Consumption plan is correct because it automatically scales your function app based on demand, including scaling out to handle peak loads, and you only pay for execution time and resources consumed when your functions are running. When idle, there are no costs because the plan does not reserve any instances; it relies on a dynamic, event-driven scale model that can scale down to zero.

Answer

Premium plan

Answer

Container Instances

Answer

App Service plan

Question 14

You have an Azure App Service web app that uses a custom domain with TLS/SSL binding. You need to migrate the app to a new App Service plan in a different region. What is the correct order of steps?

Accepted Answer

Export the current plan, create the new plan, deploy the app, bind the domain and certificate. First export the current App Service plan (or scale up), then create the new plan, deploy the app, and finally bind the custom domain and TLS certificate. Option D is the correct sequence. Option A misses the certificate binding. Option B is out of order. Option C exports after creating the new plan.

Answer

Create the new plan, deploy the app, export the current plan, bind the domain

Answer

Export the current plan, create the new plan, bind the domain, deploy the app

Answer

Bind the domain to the new plan, export the current plan, create the new plan, deploy the app

Question 15

You are designing a solution that runs background jobs to process images. The jobs can run up to 10 minutes each. You need to ensure the jobs are resilient to failures and can be retried automatically. Which Azure service should you use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Queue Storage with an Azure Function trigger. Azure Queue Storage with an Azure Function trigger is the correct choice because it provides a reliable, message-based architecture for background job processing. Queue messages persist until processed, and the Azure Function trigger automatically retries on failure (up to 5 times by default, with configurable policies). This handles the 10-minute job duration via the queue's visibility timeout, which can be set to match the job's maximum runtime, ensuring messages are not prematurely reprocessed.

Answer

Azure Logic Apps with a recurrence trigger

Answer

Azure Service Bus with a WebJob

Answer

Azure Event Grid with a Logic App