AZ-204 Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions — Timed 10 Questions

Question 1

You have an App Service app that uses Azure SQL Database. Users report that some queries are slow. You need to monitor query performance and receive alerts when the average query duration exceeds 1 second. Which two Azure services should you use?

10 minute time limit — choose an answer to begin.

Accepted Answer

Azure Monitor Alerts. Application Insights (D) provides built-in SQL dependency tracking for your App Service app, enabling you to monitor individual query durations and collect metrics like average query duration. Azure Monitor Alerts (B) is then used to configure and receive alerts based on these metrics collected by Application Insights. When the average query duration (from Application Insights) exceeds 1 second, Azure Monitor Alerts will trigger, fulfilling both the monitoring and alerting requirements using two distinct Azure services.

Answer

Azure Advisor

Answer

Azure Monitor Logs

Answer

Azure SQL Analytics

Question 2

You have an Azure Front Door Premium instance with a Web Application Firewall (WAF) policy. The exhibit shows a custom rule. What is the effect of this rule?

Accepted Answer

Blocks traffic that does NOT originate from 192.168.1.0/24 or 10.0.0.0/8. The rule blocks requests that do NOT originate from the specified IP ranges (negateCondition: true). Option A is wrong because it allows all traffic. Option B is wrong because it blocks only those IPs. Option D states that traffic from the specified IPs is allowed. While this is the net outcome, the rule itself is configured to *block* traffic that *does not* match the specified IPs (due to 'action: Block' and 'negateCondition: true'). Option C directly describes this blocking mechanism.

Answer

Allows all traffic

Answer

Blocks traffic from 192.168.1.0/24 and 10.0.0.0/8

Answer

Allows traffic from 192.168.1.0/24 and 10.0.0.0/8

Question 3

You have an Azure Policy as shown in the exhibit. The roleDefinitionId corresponds to the 'Contributor' role. What does this policy do?

Accepted Answer

Denies Contributors from creating or modifying virtual machines. The premise of the policy as described is flawed. Azure Policy evaluates conditions based on the resource properties and request context, but it does not have a direct field or alias to check the 'roleDefinitionId' of the user performing the action for resource operations. Therefore, a policy cannot be constructed to selectively deny virtual machine creation/modification *only* for users with the Contributor role based on their 'roleDefinitionId' in the policy's 'if' condition. Preventing Contributors from creating VMs is typically handled by not assigning them the Contributor role, or by assigning a custom role with more restrictive permissions. If the intent was to deny *all* VM creation/modification, the policy would simply target 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines' with a 'deny' effect, without a condition on 'roleDefinitionId'.

Answer

Allows Contributors to create virtual machines

Answer

Audits when Contributors create virtual machines

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Deploys a virtual machine when a Contributor action occurs

Question 4

Which TWO actions should you take to optimize costs for an Azure SQL Database that is underutilized? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Purchase reserved capacity. Purchasing reserved capacity for Azure SQL Database allows you to commit to a one- or three-year term, which provides a significant discount (up to 40-60%) compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. This is a cost optimization strategy for a database that is underutilized because you are already paying for the current service tier and can reduce the per-unit cost without changing the performance level. Scaling down to a lower service tier (or a lower DTU/vCore configuration within the same tier) directly addresses underutilization by reducing the provisioned capacity to better match actual usage. Since you pay for the provisioned capacity, reducing it when it's not fully utilized leads to immediate cost savings.

Answer

Enable geo-replication

Answer

Increase the DTU or vCore limit

Answer

Enable read scale-out

Question 5

Which THREE metrics should you monitor to determine if an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster is running optimally? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Node CPU usage percentage. Node CPU usage percentage (A) is a critical metric because sustained high CPU usage on nodes indicates resource contention, which can degrade pod performance and trigger the kubelet to evict pods. Monitoring this helps ensure the cluster has sufficient compute capacity and that horizontal pod autoscalers or node autoscalers are configured correctly. Similarly, Pod memory usage percentage (E) is vital as high memory consumption can lead to Out-Of-Memory (OOM) errors, pod evictions, and application crashes, directly impacting workload stability and performance. Finally, Disk I/O throughput (D) is crucial for applications that are disk-intensive. Poor disk performance can create bottlenecks, slowing down data processing and overall application responsiveness, even if CPU and memory resources appear sufficient. Together, these three metrics provide a comprehensive view of the cluster's resource health and workload performance.

Answer

API server request latency

Answer

Network bytes sent and received

Question 6

Which TWO approaches can help you optimize the cost of Azure Storage accounts that store infrequently accessed data? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use Cool or Archive storage tier. Cool and Archive storage tiers are specifically designed for infrequently accessed data, offering significantly lower storage costs compared to the Hot tier. Cool tier is optimized for data accessed less than once per month, while Archive tier is for data that is rarely accessed and has a retrieval latency of several hours, making them cost-effective choices. Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management allows you to automate the transition of blobs between these tiers (e.g., from Hot to Cool, then to Archive) based on rules like age or last access time, ensuring that data is always stored in the most cost-effective tier for its current access pattern, thereby optimizing costs over time.

Answer

Use Premium storage tier

Answer

Enable geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)

Answer

Enable Azure Storage encryption

Question 7

You are optimizing an Azure SQL Database that runs a heavy reporting workload. Queries are slow due to high logical reads. Which index strategy should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use columnstore indexes on fact tables. High logical reads in a heavy reporting workload are often best addressed by columnstore indexes. Columnstore indexes provide significant data compression, reducing the number of pages that need to be read from disk. They also enable batch mode processing and segment elimination, which dramatically improve performance for analytical queries involving large scans and aggregations, thereby directly reducing logical reads across the workload.

Answer

Create nonclustered indexes with included columns

Answer

Disable auto-update statistics

Answer

Rebuild clustered indexes with higher fill factor

Question 8

Which THREE actions should you take to optimize cost for an Azure Functions app that processes messages from a queue?

Accepted Answer

Use Consumption plan instead of Premium. The three actions that optimize cost are: A) Consumption plan charges per execution and scales to zero when idle, minimizing cost for variable workloads. B) Batch processing reduces the number of function executions by processing multiple messages in a single invocation, lowering total execution count. C) If a Premium plan is chosen, configuring auto-scale to reduce instances during off-peak periods minimizes costs by avoiding payment for *unnecessary* fixed capacity, though a base cost for minimum instances still applies. Options D (Always On) keeps the app running continuously, increasing cost. Option E (increased timeout) does not reduce cost; it may increase costs by allowing longer running executions.

Answer

Enable Always On to keep the app warm

Answer

Increase function timeout to reduce retries

Question 9

You are troubleshooting a slow web application hosted on Azure App Service. The application uses Azure SQL Database. You suspect that the database queries are taking too long. Which Azure Monitor feature should you use to identify slow queries?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Insights. Azure SQL Insights (part of Azure Monitor) is the correct choice because it provides dedicated monitoring for Azure SQL Database. It uses Log Analytics workspaces and offers prebuilt dashboards showing query performance, wait statistics, and resource utilization to identify slow-running or resource-intensive queries.

Answer

Azure Activity Log

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Azure Advisor

Answer

Azure Monitor Metrics

Question 10

Which THREE features of Azure Monitor can help you diagnose a performance issue in an Azure Virtual Machine?

Accepted Answer

Log Analytics workspace queries. Log Analytics workspace queries (A) allow you to analyze performance data collected from Azure VMs, such as CPU, memory, and disk metrics, using Kusto Query Language (KQL) to identify trends, anomalies, or bottlenecks. VM Insights (B) is a feature within Azure Monitor specifically designed to provide a consolidated view of VM performance, health, and dependencies, leveraging Log Analytics for data. Diagnostic settings (E) are crucial as they enable the configuration of VMs to send performance counters directly to a Log Analytics workspace, making the data available for analysis by queries and VM Insights. These three features are core to diagnosing VM performance issues within Azure Monitor.

Answer

Azure Network Watcher

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Azure Backup reports