AZ-204 Develop for Azure storage — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company stores archival data in Azure Blob Storage. The data is accessed only a few times per year, and retrieval can take up to 15 hours. Which blob access tier minimizes storage costs while meeting these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Archive tier. The Archive tier is the correct choice because it is designed for data that is rarely accessed (a few times per year) and has a retrieval latency of up to 15 hours, which matches the requirement. It offers the lowest storage cost among Azure Blob Storage tiers, making it optimal for long-term archival data where infrequent access and delayed retrieval are acceptable.

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Hot tier

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Cool tier

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Premium tier

Question 2

You are building a serverless application that needs to react to insertions and updates in an Azure Cosmos DB container. You want to process these changes using an Azure Function. Which trigger should you configure for the function?

Accepted Answer

Cosmos DB trigger. A Cosmos DB trigger is the correct choice because it is specifically designed to react to changes in a Cosmos DB container by leveraging the change feed. The Azure Function runtime polls the change feed for inserts and updates, invoking the function with batches of documents as they occur. This provides a native, serverless integration without needing additional services.

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Blob trigger

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Event Grid trigger

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Service Bus trigger

Question 3

You are developing an application that writes logs to Azure Blob Storage. Each log entry is small (less than 1 KB) and you need to store millions of entries per day. You want to minimize storage costs and maximize write throughput. Which blob type should you use?

Accepted Answer

Append blobs.. Append blobs are optimized for append operations, making them ideal for logging scenarios where each log entry is appended to the blob. They provide high throughput for write-heavy, sequential append workloads and are cost-effective because they use the same block blob pricing but avoid the overhead of managing individual blocks for each small entry.

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Block blobs with a high block size.

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Page blobs.

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Block blobs with a low block size.

Question 4

You need to upload large files (up to 100 GB) to Azure Blob Storage from a web application. The upload must be resilient to network failures and support pausing/resuming. Which approach should you use?

Accepted Answer

Use block blob with multiple blocks and parallel upload.. Option B is correct because block blobs support uploading large files (up to ~4.75 TB) by splitting the file into multiple blocks, uploading them in parallel for speed, and committing the block list atomically. This approach provides resilience to network failures (individual blocks can be retried) and supports pausing/resuming by tracking which blocks have been uploaded.

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Upload the blob as a single PUT operation.

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Use append blob.

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Use AzCopy from the server.

Question 5

You need to store millions of small log entries (each <1 KB) per day from an IoT device. The logs are rarely read. Which storage solution is most cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage Block Blob. Azure Blob Storage Block Blob is the most cost-effective solution for storing millions of small log entries (<1 KB) that are rarely read because it offers extremely low storage costs per GB, supports high-throughput ingestion, and is optimized for large-scale, append-oriented workloads. Block blobs can be stored in the 'Cool' or 'Archive' access tier to further reduce costs, and they can be efficiently batched into larger blocks (up to 100 MB per block) to minimize transaction costs.

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Azure SQL Database

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Azure Table Storage

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Azure Files

Question 6

You are developing an application that writes log entries to Azure Blob Storage. Each log entry is approximately 500 bytes, and you expect to generate millions of entries per day. The logs are rarely read, and when they are read, you need to retrieve ranges of logs sequentially. Which blob type should you use to minimize storage costs and maximize write throughput?

Accepted Answer

Append blobs. Append blobs are optimized for append operations, making them ideal for write-heavy, sequential logging scenarios. Each append operation adds data to the end of the blob, achieving high write throughput without the overhead of managing block lists. Since logs are rarely read and accessed sequentially, append blobs minimize storage costs compared to block blobs (which require block management overhead) and page blobs (which are designed for random access and are more expensive).

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Block blobs

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Page blobs

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Azure Files shares

Question 7

An application stores large media files (up to 5 GB) that are frequently appended to but rarely read sequentially. Which Azure Blob Storage type should be used to optimize writes and cost?

Accepted Answer

Append blob. Append blobs are optimized for append operations, making them ideal for scenarios like logging or storing media files that are frequently appended to. They support high-throughput writes without the overhead of managing block lists, and they are cost-effective for sequential append workloads compared to block blobs, which require explicit block management and are better suited for random read/write patterns.

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Block blob

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Page blob

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Archive blob

Question 8

You are developing a .NET Core application that stores session state data. The data is infrequently updated but must be read quickly for every user request. You need a serverless, globally distributed storage solution with low latency reads. Which Azure storage solution should you use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with SQL API. Azure Cosmos DB with SQL API is the correct choice because it provides a globally distributed, serverless database service with single-digit millisecond read latency at any scale, making it ideal for infrequently updated session state that must be read quickly for every user request. Its multi-region replication ensures low-latency reads from any location, and the SQL API offers a familiar query interface for .NET Core applications.

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Azure Table Storage

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Azure Redis Cache

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Azure Blob Storage

Question 9

You need to store large binary files (up to 2 GB) that are frequently overwritten in place (entire file replaced). You want to minimize storage cost and write latency. Which Azure Blob Storage type should you use?

Accepted Answer

Block Blob. Block blobs are optimized for storing large binary files (up to ~4.75 TB) and support high-throughput uploads via PutBlock and PutBlockList operations. They allow overwriting an entire blob by uploading a new set of blocks, which minimizes write latency compared to page blobs that require sector-aligned writes. Block blobs also offer lower storage cost than page blobs, making them the best choice for frequently overwritten large files.

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Page Blob

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Append Blob

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Archive Blob

Question 10

An application writes millions of small log entries (500 bytes each) daily. The logs are rarely read, and when read, they are accessed sequentially. You need to minimize storage costs and maximize write throughput. Which Azure Blob Storage type should you use?

Accepted Answer

Append Blob. Append Blob is optimized for append operations, making it ideal for logging scenarios where new data is continuously added to the end of the blob. It provides high write throughput for small, sequential writes (like 500-byte log entries) and lower storage costs compared to Block Blob for this pattern, as it avoids the overhead of managing multiple blocks per append. Additionally, Append Blob supports sequential read access efficiently, matching the rare, sequential read requirement.

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Block Blob

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Page Blob

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Archive Blob