AZ-900 Practice Test 3 — 30 Questions

Question 1

A company deploys a critical application across two Azure regions for disaster recovery. They want to automatically failover traffic to the secondary region if the primary becomes unavailable. They also want to improve performance by routing users to the closest region. Which Azure service should they use?

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

Accepted Answer

Azure Traffic Manager. Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer that enables you to distribute traffic optimally to services across global Azure regions. It supports the 'Priority' routing method for automatic failover to a secondary region when the primary is unavailable, and the 'Performance' routing method to direct users to the closest region for improved latency. This combination directly meets the stated requirements for disaster recovery failover and performance-based routing.

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Azure Load Balancer

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Azure Application Gateway

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Azure VPN Gateway

Question 2

A company has 15 Azure subscriptions organized under multiple management groups. The security team has defined a standard set of 8 Azure Policy definitions that must be applied to every subscription. These definitions enforce required tags, deny creation of public IPs, require encryption for storage accounts, and restrict VM SKUs. The team wants to assign these policies as a single entity to simplify management and ensure consistent compliance. What should the team create and assign?

Accepted Answer

An Azure Policy initiative (policy set definition) containing the policy definitions. An Azure Policy initiative (policy set definition) allows grouping multiple individual policy definitions into a single set, which can then be assigned as one entity. This simplifies management and ensures consistent compliance across all subscriptions, as the security team requires. Assigning the initiative at the root management group applies it to all 15 subscriptions under the management groups.

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An Azure Blueprint containing the policy definitions

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An Azure Policy assignment for each individual definition at the root management group

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An Azure Resource Manager template that deploys the policy definitions

Question 3

A company's IT manager is evaluating a public cloud provider. The provider's data center contains powerful physical servers that host virtual machines from thousands of different organizations. The manager is concerned about security, but the provider assures that each organization's VMs are logically isolated and cannot access each other's data, even though they share the same hardware. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best describe?

Accepted Answer

Resource pooling. The scenario describes resource pooling because the provider's physical servers host VMs from multiple organizations, and logical isolation ensures each tenant's data remains separate. Resource pooling is the cloud characteristic where computing resources (e.g., storage, processing, memory) are aggregated to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model, with physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand. The provider's assurance of logical isolation (e.g., via hypervisor-level segmentation or VLANs) is a direct implementation of resource pooling's security boundary.

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Rapid elasticity

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Measured service

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Broad network access

Question 4

Which Azure storage redundancy option replicates data synchronously across three availability zones within a single region?

Accepted Answer

Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS). Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) is the correct answer because it synchronously replicates data across three Azure availability zones within a single region, ensuring high durability and availability even if an entire zone fails. This meets the exact requirement of the question: synchronous replication across multiple zones in one region.

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Locally Redundant Storage (LRS)

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Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)

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Geo-Zone-Redundant Storage (GZRS)

Question 5

An organization needs to ensure all VMs in Azure use approved VM sizes only. Which Azure feature enforces this?

Accepted Answer

Azure Policy with allowed VM SKU policy. Azure Policy with the 'Allowed virtual machine SKUs' built-in policy definition enforces which VM sizes can be deployed in a subscription or resource group. When assigned, this policy evaluates all VM creation or update requests and denies any that use a SKU not included in the allowed list, ensuring compliance with organizational standards.

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Azure RBAC

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Azure Resource Manager locks

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Azure Cost Management budgets

Question 6

A company wants to run a containerized microservices application on Azure. The application requires automatic scaling, service discovery, and rolling updates without manual intervention. They prefer not to manage the underlying virtual machines. Which Azure compute service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed Kubernetes orchestration platform that handles automatic scaling (via Horizontal Pod Autoscaler), service discovery (via Kubernetes DNS and Services), and rolling updates (via Deployment strategies) without requiring you to manage the underlying virtual machines. AKS abstracts the control plane and node management, allowing you to focus on deploying and managing containerized microservices.

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Azure Container Instances

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Azure App Service

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Azure Functions

Question 7

A company runs a critical ERP system on-premises and plans to extend the application to Azure IaaS VMs for burst capacity. The network team requires a dedicated, private connection between the on-premises data center and Azure that does not traverse the public internet. The connection must offer consistent latency, high bandwidth options up to 10 Gbps, and a financially backed SLA for availability. Which Azure service should the team provision to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Azure ExpressRoute. Azure ExpressRoute provides a dedicated, private connection from on-premises to Azure that bypasses the public internet, ensuring consistent latency and high bandwidth up to 10 Gbps. It also offers a financially backed SLA for availability, making it the ideal choice for extending a critical ERP system for burst capacity with predictable performance.

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Azure VPN Gateway (site-to-site)

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Azure Front Door

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Azure Bastion

Question 8

A company has multiple Azure subscriptions used by different departments. The security team wants to enforce a requirement that all Azure Storage accounts in every subscription must be encrypted at rest using customer-managed keys (CMK). The solution must automatically evaluate existing and new storage accounts for compliance, and it must be able to automatically remediate non-compliant resources by enabling CMK encryption. The team wants to use a single, centralized Azure feature that can be assigned once and apply to all subscriptions. Which Azure feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Policy. Azure Policy is the correct choice because it can enforce organizational standards and assess compliance across all Azure subscriptions from a single assignment. By using a built-in or custom policy definition that requires storage accounts to use customer-managed keys (CMK) for encryption at rest, Azure Policy can automatically evaluate both existing and new storage accounts. With the 'DeployIfNotExists' effect, it can also trigger remediation tasks to enable CMK encryption on non-compliant resources without manual intervention.

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Azure Blueprints

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Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

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Azure Security Center (Microsoft Defender for Cloud)

Question 9

A global company is designing a disaster recovery solution for a critical application. They plan to deploy the application to two Azure regions. The company wants to minimize the risk of both regions failing simultaneously due to a major platform update or a widespread natural disaster. Which Azure feature provides a specific pairing of regions to meet this goal?

Accepted Answer

Azure region pairs. Azure region pairs are designed to ensure that two paired regions are updated sequentially during platform maintenance, reducing the risk of simultaneous failure. They are also physically separated by at least 300 miles to minimize the impact of natural disasters. This meets the company's goal of minimizing simultaneous failure risk from both a major platform update and a widespread natural disaster.

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Availability Zones within a single region

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Azure Traffic Manager with geographic routing

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Azure Site Recovery replication between any two regions of your choice

Question 10

A company has a policy that all Azure resources must have a tag named 'CostCenter'. The governance team wants to automatically add the tag with a default value 'IT' to any new resource that is created without it. The team wants the tag to be applied during resource creation, not just report non-compliance. The solution must also support remediation for existing non-compliant resources if needed later. Which Azure Policy effect should the team use in their policy definition?

Accepted Answer

Modify. The Modify effect is correct because it can automatically add or change tags on resources during creation or update, enforcing compliance in real-time. Unlike Append, Modify supports both creation and remediation of existing resources, and unlike DeployIfNotExists, it directly alters the resource properties without deploying a separate remediation task.

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Append

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DeployIfNotExists

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Audit

Question 11

A small business runs its IT infrastructure in a small on-premises server room. The business owner is considering moving to Azure and asks the IT manager: 'How can a large cloud provider like Microsoft offer compute and storage at a lower per-unit cost than I can get by purchasing my own servers, even though I only need a few virtual machines?' Which cloud computing benefit best answers this question?

Accepted Answer

Economies of scale. Economies of scale allow Microsoft to spread massive capital and operational costs (data center construction, power, cooling, hardware procurement) across millions of customers. This per-unit cost reduction means even a small business consuming only a few virtual machines benefits from the same low-cost infrastructure that a large enterprise would, making Azure's compute and storage cheaper than purchasing and maintaining dedicated on-premises servers.

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High availability

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Elasticity

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Fault tolerance

Question 12

A company migrates its web application to Azure. The CFO wants to view detailed reports of CPU usage, storage consumption, and network bandwidth for each team's resources to accurately allocate costs. The company uses Azure Cost Management and Billing to generate these reports. Which characteristic of cloud computing does this capability best illustrate?

Accepted Answer

Measured service. Measured service is the cloud characteristic that enables providers to track and report resource usage (CPU, storage, bandwidth) for billing and cost allocation. Azure Cost Management and Billing leverages this capability by aggregating consumption metrics from Azure Monitor and resource providers, then generating detailed reports that allow the CFO to allocate costs per team. Without measured service, granular usage-based billing and cost attribution would not be possible.

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Rapid elasticity

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Resource pooling

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On-demand self-service

Question 13

A development team frequently needs to create and tear down test environments. In their on-premises datacenter, they must submit a ticket to the IT operations team, which often takes several days to provision the required servers. After migrating to Azure, developers can now create virtual machines, databases, and other resources directly through the Azure portal or using PowerShell scripts, without any interaction from the IT operations team. This ability to provision cloud resources directly is a direct example of which fundamental characteristic of cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. The scenario describes developers provisioning virtual machines, databases, and other resources directly through the Azure portal or PowerShell scripts without needing to interact with the IT operations team. This is the definition of on-demand self-service, a core characteristic of cloud computing defined by NIST (SP 800-145) as a consumer being able to unilaterally provision computing capabilities without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

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Resource pooling

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Measured service

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Rapid elasticity

Question 14

A financial services company must deploy a standardized environment for a new customer-facing application. The environment must include a specific set of Azure resources (such as virtual networks, databases, and App Service plans), pre-configured role assignments for the compliance team, and a collection of Azure Policy definitions that enforce encryption and tagging rules. The company needs to package all these components into a single, versioned artifact that can be consistently deployed across multiple subscriptions and regions, with the ability to track changes and updates. Which Azure service should the company use to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct choice because it is designed to package a standardized environment—including resource templates, role assignments, and policy definitions—into a single, versioned artifact that can be deployed consistently across multiple subscriptions and regions. Unlike ARM templates, Blueprints natively supports versioning, tracking changes, and updating deployments, which meets the company's requirement for a versioned artifact with change tracking.

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Azure Policy

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Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates

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Azure Management Groups

Question 15

A company deploys three Azure virtual machines (VMs) that host a critical line-of-business application. All three VMs are located in the same Azure region. The company notices that during planned maintenance events triggered by the Azure platform, such as host OS updates, all three VMs are updated simultaneously, causing the application to become unavailable. The company requires that during such maintenance, at least two VMs remain running to preserve application uptime. Which Azure feature should the company implement to logically group the VMs and ensure they are updated in separate batches?

Accepted Answer

Azure Availability Set. An Azure Availability Set logically groups VMs to protect against platform updates and faults. By placing VMs into an availability set, Azure assigns them to different update domains (default 5) and fault domains (default 2). During planned maintenance, only one update domain is rebooted at a time, ensuring that at most one of the three VMs is updated simultaneously, thus keeping at least two VMs running.

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Azure Availability Zone

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Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set

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Azure Site Recovery

Question 16

A company is migrating its on-premises infrastructure to Azure. Previously, the company purchased physical servers, networking equipment, and data center space every three years, paying a large sum upfront. After migration, the company expects to pay a monthly invoice based only on the virtual machines and storage it actually uses, with the ability to increase or decrease resources as needed without additional upfront costs. This change in cost structure is best described by which pair of cloud computing concepts?

Accepted Answer

Capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx). This scenario describes a shift from paying large upfront sums for hardware and data center space (CapEx) to paying a monthly invoice based on actual consumption of virtual machines and storage (OpEx). Azure's pay-as-you-go model allows resources to be scaled up or down without upfront costs, directly aligning with the CapEx-to-OpEx transition. This is a fundamental cloud concept that changes how organizations budget and manage IT expenses.

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Measured service and resource pooling

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Economies of scale and geographic distribution

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Agility and high availability

Question 17

A company has a production Azure subscription used by multiple teams. The governance team wants to enforce a rule that only virtual machines (VMs) of specific SKU sizes (e.g., Standard_D2s_v3 and Standard_D4s_v3) can be deployed. If a team attempts to deploy a VM of a different SKU size, the deployment must be blocked immediately and the user must see an error message explaining the restriction. Which Azure feature should the governance team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Policy with the 'Deny' effect. Azure Policy with the 'Deny' effect is the correct choice because it allows the governance team to define and enforce rules that prevent the deployment of non-compliant resources, such as VMs with disallowed SKU sizes. When a policy with the 'Deny' effect is assigned, any attempt to create or update a resource that violates the policy is blocked immediately, and the user receives a clear error message explaining the restriction. This is the only Azure feature that provides proactive, resource-level enforcement with a built-in denial mechanism.

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Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) with a custom role that denies the 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write' action

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Azure Blueprints with a resource lock

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Azure resource locks at the resource group level

Question 18

A company migrates its web application to Azure App Service (PaaS) and its data to Azure SQL Database (PaaS). The company wants to understand which security responsibilities it retains after the migration. According to the shared responsibility model, which of the following responsibilities remains the responsibility of the company (customer) when using these PaaS services?

Accepted Answer

Managing user access to the application and database. In the shared responsibility model for PaaS, the cloud provider manages the underlying infrastructure, including the OS and network security groups, while the customer retains responsibility for managing access to their application and data. For Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database, this means the customer must configure authentication, authorization, and user permissions (e.g., using Microsoft Entra ID or SQL logins) to control who can access the application and database.

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Patching the operating system of the web server

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Managing network security groups for the virtual network

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Physical security of the Azure data center

Question 19

A company has deployed a production Azure SQL Database that is used by a critical line-of-business application. The database administrators need to be able to change the database schema and scaling settings. However, the operations team must ensure that no one can accidentally delete the database or its server. The company does not want to implement a complex backup strategy for this prevention; they want a simple control that can be applied at the resource level without affecting other management operations. What should the operations team configure to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

A 'CanNotDelete' resource lock on the database and the server. A 'CanNotDelete' resource lock on the database and the server prevents accidental deletion while still allowing all other management operations, including schema changes and scaling. This meets the requirement for a simple, resource-level control that does not affect read or update permissions.

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An Azure Policy definition with the 'Deny' effect assigned to the resource group containing the database

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A custom Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) role that excludes the delete action

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An Azure Blueprint that includes a policy enforcing a read-only state

Question 20

A company plans to deploy a web application on Azure Virtual Machines. The solution must remain available even if a physical datacenter in the region experiences a complete outage. The company wants to use the simplest and most cost-effective architecture that meets this requirement within a single Azure region. What should the company configure?

Accepted Answer

Deploy VMs in an Availability Zone across multiple zones.. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across multiple zones protects against a single datacenter outage while remaining in one region, making it the simplest and most cost-effective solution for this requirement.

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Deploy VMs in an Availability Set across multiple fault domains.

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Deploy VMs in a single scale set with autoscale.

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Deploy VMs in a virtual network with a VPN gateway to a secondary region.