AZ-900 Practice Exam 1 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A company has a policy that all Azure Storage accounts must have diagnostic settings enabled to send logs and metrics to a specific Log Analytics workspace. The governance team wants to automatically configure these diagnostic settings when a new storage account is created, without blocking the initial creation. The solution must not require manual intervention. Which Azure Policy effect should the team use in their policy definition?

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

Accepted Answer

DeployIfNotExists. The DeployIfNotExists effect is correct because it automatically deploys a remediation task to configure diagnostic settings on storage accounts that lack them, without blocking the initial creation of the resource. This effect evaluates resources after creation and triggers a deployment to bring non-compliant resources into compliance, which aligns with the requirement for automatic configuration without manual intervention.

Answer

Audit

Answer

Deny

Answer

Append

Question 2

A global e-commerce company has web applications deployed on Azure virtual machines in the West US and West Europe regions. The company needs a single, global HTTP-based entry point that can perform SSL offloading, route requests based on the URL path (e.g., /api to one backend pool, /images to another), and provide a web application firewall (WAF) to protect against common web attacks. Additionally, the solution must automatically direct users to the closest regional deployment to minimize latency. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Front Door. Azure Front Door is the correct choice because it provides a global, HTTP/HTTPS-based entry point with SSL offloading, URL path-based routing to different backend pools, and a built-in web application firewall (WAF). It also uses Anycast-based routing to automatically direct users to the closest regional deployment, minimizing latency.

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager

Answer

Azure Application Gateway

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Question 3

A company wants to proactively identify Azure resources that are misconfigured and could lead to security vulnerabilities, such as virtual machines with open management ports or unencrypted storage accounts. They also need to get prioritized recommendations for remediating these issues. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center). Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center) is the correct service because it continuously assesses the security posture of Azure resources, identifies misconfigurations such as open management ports (e.g., RDP/SSH) or unencrypted storage accounts, and provides prioritized, actionable recommendations for remediation. It integrates with Azure Policy to enforce security standards and offers a secure score to track improvement over time.

Answer

Azure Advisor

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Blueprints

Question 4

Which Azure service enables you to synchronize your on-premises Active Directory with Azure Active Directory?

Accepted Answer

Azure AD Connect. Microsoft Entra Connect is the correct service because it is specifically designed to synchronize on-premises Active Directory identities with Microsoft Entra ID, enabling hybrid identity scenarios. It handles password hash synchronization, pass-through authentication, and federation integration, ensuring users have a single identity for both on-premises and cloud resources.

Answer

Azure AD Domain Services

Answer

Azure AD B2C

Answer

Azure Multi-Factor Authentication

Question 5

A company has an on-premises data center with a site-to-site VPN connection to Azure. The company wants to ensure that the connection remains secure by encrypting all traffic between the on-premises network and Azure virtual network. The connection must be established over the public internet. Which Azure service should the company use to create this encrypted tunnel?

Accepted Answer

Azure VPN Gateway. Azure VPN Gateway is the correct service because it creates an encrypted site-to-site VPN tunnel over the public internet using IPsec/IKE protocols. This meets the requirement for a secure connection between the on-premises data center and Azure virtual network over the public internet.

Answer

Azure ExpressRoute

Answer

Azure Virtual WAN

Answer

Azure Bastion

Question 6

A company has a critical Azure Storage account that stores immutable backups. The IT administrator wants to ensure that no one can delete or modify this storage account, even administrators with Contributor or Owner roles. The company still needs to allow read access to the data within the storage account. Which Azure governance feature should the administrator implement?

Accepted Answer

Azure Resource Manager read-only lock. An Azure Resource Manager read-only lock prevents any user, including those with Contributor or Owner roles, from deleting or modifying the storage account while still allowing read access to the data. This lock operates at the management plane, blocking DELETE and PATCH operations via the Azure Resource Manager API, but does not affect data plane operations like reading blobs or files.

Answer

Azure Policy with Deny effect

Answer

Azure Blueprint with role assignment

Answer

Azure role-based access control (RBAC) with Reader role

Question 7

A company is developing a new web application. The development team wants to deploy the application code without having to manage the underlying virtual machines, operating systems, or runtime environments. They only want to focus on writing code and let the cloud provider handle the infrastructure, platform, and scaling automatically. Which cloud service model does this scenario describe?

Accepted Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS). This scenario describes Platform as a Service (PaaS) because the development team wants to deploy application code without managing the underlying virtual machines, operating systems, or runtime environments. PaaS provides a managed hosting environment where the cloud provider handles infrastructure, platform updates, and automatic scaling, allowing developers to focus solely on writing and deploying code. In contrast, IaaS would require managing VMs and OS, while SaaS delivers fully built applications, not a platform for custom code deployment.

Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 8

A company manages hundreds of Azure SQL databases across multiple subscriptions. The compliance team requires that every Azure SQL database has diagnostic settings enabled to send logs to a central Log Analytics workspace. The team wants a solution that automatically configures diagnostic settings for any new Azure SQL database when it is created, without requiring manual intervention or additional scripting. Which Azure governance feature should the team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect. Azure Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect is the correct choice because it automatically evaluates new Azure SQL databases against a policy rule and, if diagnostic settings are missing, triggers a remediation task to deploy them to the specified Log Analytics workspace. This effect operates at resource creation time without manual intervention or scripting, fulfilling the compliance team's requirement for automatic, consistent configuration across all subscriptions.

Answer

Azure Blueprints with a resource group artifact

Answer

Azure Resource Manager templates deployed via Azure DevOps

Answer

Azure Monitor with a data collection rule

Question 9

What is an Azure availability zone?

Accepted Answer

A physically separate datacenter within an Azure region with independent power and cooling. An Azure availability zone is a physically separate datacenter within an Azure region, each with its own independent power, cooling, and networking. This isolation ensures that if one zone fails, applications and data in other zones remain unaffected, providing high availability and fault tolerance for critical workloads.

Answer

A geographic region with multiple Azure datacenters

Answer

A pair of geographically distant Azure regions

Answer

A logical grouping of Azure resources for billing

Question 10

Which Azure service provides dedicated physical servers for regulatory or licensing requirements where hardware cannot be shared with other customers?

Accepted Answer

Azure Dedicated Host. Azure Dedicated Host provides physical servers dedicated to a single Azure subscription, ensuring that hardware is not shared with other customers. This meets regulatory or licensing requirements that mandate hardware isolation, such as specific compliance standards or software licensing agreements that restrict usage to dedicated hardware.

Answer

Azure Reserved VM Instances

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Azure Spot VMs

Answer

Azure Isolated VM sizes

Question 11

A company migrates its web application to Azure App Service (Platform as a Service). The application processes sensitive customer data and must ensure that all data in memory is encrypted while the application is running. According to the shared responsibility model, which party is responsible for implementing encryption of data in memory for this application?

Accepted Answer

The company, because it is responsible for securing its own application data and code.. In the shared responsibility model for PaaS like Azure App Service, Microsoft secures the physical host, OS, and platform runtime, but the customer retains responsibility for securing application-level data, including data in memory. Encrypting data in memory requires application code changes (e.g., using .NET's `ProtectedMemory` or Windows DPAPI), which is solely the customer's responsibility because Microsoft cannot access or manage the application's runtime memory contents.

Answer

Microsoft Azure, because it provides the hosting infrastructure and manages the runtime environment.

Answer

Both Microsoft and the company share this responsibility equally.

Answer

A third-party encryption service that is automatically enabled for all Azure App Service deployments.

Question 12

A company has two Azure virtual networks: VNet-A in the East US region and VNet-B in the West US region. Both virtual networks use non-overlapping IP address spaces and are deployed in different resource groups. The company needs to enable communication between resources in VNet-A and VNet-B using private IP addresses only, with low latency and without any traffic traversing the public internet. The solution must not require deploying a virtual network gateway or any additional network appliance. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Network Peering. Azure Virtual Network Peering connects VNet-A and VNet-B directly over the Microsoft backbone network, enabling private IP communication with low latency and no public internet traversal. It requires no virtual network gateway or additional appliances, and works across regions (global peering) as long as IP address spaces are non-overlapping.

Answer

Azure VPN Gateway

Answer

Azure ExpressRoute

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Question 13

A company has a management group hierarchy: Root > Europe > Production. They assign a policy at the Root level that denies creation of resources without a tag. Later, they assign a different policy at the Europe level. What is the effective effect on the Production subscription?

Accepted Answer

Both policies apply. Azure Policy is inherited by default from higher-level management groups down to subscriptions. When a policy is assigned at the Root management group, it applies to all child management groups and subscriptions, including the Production subscription. Assigning an additional policy at the Europe management group does not remove or override the Root-level policy; instead, both policies are evaluated and enforced, with the most restrictive effect taking precedence. Therefore, the Production subscription is subject to both policies.

Answer

Only the policy at the Europe level applies

Answer

Only the policy at the Root level applies

Answer

The policy at the lower level overrides the Root policy

Question 14

A company uses Azure for its production workloads. The security team wants to receive proactive, personalized recommendations to improve the security of their Azure resources, such as enabling Microsoft Defender for Cloud on subscriptions that do not have it enabled. Which Azure service provides these security recommendations?

Accepted Answer

Azure Advisor. Azure Advisor provides personalized, proactive recommendations to optimize Azure resources for security, reliability, performance, and cost. The question specifically asks for security recommendations, and Azure Advisor includes a dedicated 'Security' category that surfaces actions such as enabling Microsoft Defender for Cloud on subscriptions that lack it. This matches the scenario exactly.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Service Health

Answer

Azure Monitor

Question 15

An organization wants to combine on-premises data center resources with Azure public cloud services to extend capacity during peak demand. Which cloud deployment model describes this approach?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid. The hybrid cloud model combines on-premises infrastructure (private cloud) with public cloud services, enabling workload bursting during peak demand. This approach uses technologies like Azure ExpressRoute or VPN gateways to create a seamless network, allowing organizations to scale capacity on-demand without permanently migrating all resources.

Answer

Public

Answer

Private

Answer

Multi-cloud

Question 16

A company runs a critical line-of-business application on Azure virtual machines. The operations team needs to receive proactive notifications about any upcoming planned maintenance events that could affect their virtual machines, as well as real-time alerts when a service incident occurs in the Azure region where the application is deployed. The team wants a native Azure solution that provides a personalized view of all service health events relevant to their subscriptions, including historical incident reports. Which Azure service should the operations team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Service Health. Azure Service Health provides a personalized dashboard of service health events, including planned maintenance notifications, real-time service incident alerts, and historical reports, all scoped to the user's subscriptions. This makes it the correct native Azure solution for the operations team's requirements.

Answer

Azure Monitor

Answer

Azure Advisor

Answer

Azure Status Page (status.azure.com)

Question 17

Which Azure networking service acts as a software-defined WAN that connects branch offices, datacenters, and remote users through an optimized global network?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual WAN. Azure Virtual WAN is a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) service that provides a unified, optimized global network connecting branch offices, datacenters, and remote users. It leverages Microsoft's global backbone to route traffic efficiently, automatically selecting the best path and reducing latency, while integrating with VPN, ExpressRoute, and SD-WAN partners for seamless connectivity.

Answer

Azure VPN Gateway

Answer

Azure ExpressRoute

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Question 18

What is the purpose of Azure Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?

Accepted Answer

To define Microsoft's commitments for uptime and the remedies if not met. Azure SLAs define Microsoft's formal commitments regarding service availability (uptime) and connectivity. They specify the guaranteed uptime percentage (e.g., 99.9% for most virtual machines) and outline the service credits (remedies) customers receive if Microsoft fails to meet those commitments. This is not a guarantee of zero downtime but a contractual promise with financial recourse.

Answer

To guarantee Microsoft will never have any downtime

Answer

To prevent customers from migrating to other cloud providers

Answer

To specify how Azure handles customer data

Question 19

A manufacturing company deploys a batch processing application on Azure. The processing workload is highly unpredictable; sometimes the application requires hundreds of virtual machines for a few hours to process a large queue of jobs, and at other times it requires only a handful of virtual machines. The company configures the application to automatically add and remove virtual machines based on the size of the processing queue, ensuring that they never pay for idle capacity. Which cloud characteristic does this scenario primarily demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. The scenario describes automatically scaling the number of virtual machines up and down based on the queue size, which directly aligns with the cloud characteristic of elasticity. Elasticity allows resources to be dynamically provisioned and de-provisioned to match workload demand, ensuring the company never pays for idle capacity. This is distinct from high availability, fault tolerance, or disaster recovery, which focus on uptime, redundancy, and data protection rather than dynamic scaling.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Disaster recovery

Question 20

A company is adopting Azure and needs to deploy a standardized environment that includes a resource group, a virtual network with specific IP address ranges, and a set of Azure Policy definitions to restrict allowed deployment locations. The environment will be deployed to multiple subscriptions used by different departments. The company requires a repeatable, versioned package that defines the resources, policies, and role assignments as a single item. The solution must allow updates to be managed and enforced over time. Which Azure feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct choice because it enables the orchestrated deployment of a standardized environment—including resource groups, virtual networks, Azure Policy definitions, and role assignments—as a single, versioned, and updatable package. Unlike ARM templates, Blueprints natively supports versioning, policy assignment, and role assignment as first-class artifacts, and it allows the blueprint to be assigned to multiple subscriptions while maintaining a central source of truth for updates and enforcement.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

ARM templates

Answer

Management groups