AZ-900 Practice Test 15 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which Azure compute option is best for running a batch processing job that can be interrupted and resumed without data loss, at the lowest possible cost?

Accepted Answer

Azure Spot Virtual Machines. Azure Spot Virtual Machines are designed for interruptible workloads, such as batch processing jobs, because they use unused Azure capacity at a significant discount (up to 90% compared to pay-as-you-go). When Azure needs the capacity back, these VMs can be evicted with a 30-second notice, but the job can be resumed without data loss if the application is designed to handle interruptions (e.g., using checkpointing or saving state to persistent storage). This makes Spot VMs the most cost-effective option for fault-tolerant, interruptible batch processing.

Answer

Azure Reserved VM Instances

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Azure Dedicated Host

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Standard Pay-as-you-Go VMs

Question 2

Which Azure service provides a managed virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution for deploying Windows desktops and apps from Azure?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Desktop. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is the correct answer because it is a managed desktop and app virtualization service that runs on Azure, providing a full multi-session Windows 10/11 experience and remote app streaming. Unlike IaaS-based VMs, AVD abstracts the underlying infrastructure, handles brokering, load balancing, and session management, and supports FSLogix profile containers for persistent user data. It uses the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) over HTTPS to deliver a secure, scalable VDI solution without needing to manage RDS roles or gateways.

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines

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Azure App Service

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Azure Remote Desktop Gateway

Question 3

Which Azure storage tier should you use for data that is stored for at least 180 days and is rarely accessed?

Accepted Answer

Archive tier. The Archive tier is designed for data that is rarely accessed and has a minimum storage duration of 180 days. It offers the lowest storage cost but requires several hours to rehydrate data before it can be read, making it ideal for long-term backup or compliance data that is infrequently needed.

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Hot tier

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Cool tier

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Standard tier

Question 4

What is the difference between 'high availability' and 'fault tolerance' in cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

High availability minimizes downtime during failures; fault tolerance aims for zero interruption despite failures. High availability (HA) focuses on minimizing downtime by using redundant components and failover mechanisms, typically achieving uptime of 99.99% or higher, but it may allow brief interruptions during failover. Fault tolerance, in contrast, is designed to operate without any interruption at all, often through active-active configurations or redundant hardware that masks failures completely. Option B correctly captures this distinction: HA reduces downtime, while fault tolerance aims for zero interruption.

Answer

High availability and fault tolerance are identical concepts

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High availability requires multiple regions; fault tolerance requires only one region

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Fault tolerance is only for databases; high availability is for compute

Question 5

Which Azure identity feature ensures that users must provide an additional form of verification beyond their password when signing in?

Accepted Answer

Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is the correct answer because it explicitly requires users to provide an additional verification factor—such as a phone call, text message, or app notification—beyond just their password. This implements a second layer of security, making it harder for unauthorized users to gain access even if a password is compromised. MFA is a core identity security feature in Microsoft Entra ID that directly addresses the requirement for extra verification.

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Azure AD Single Sign-On

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Azure AD Conditional Access

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Azure Identity Protection

Question 6

A company manages multiple Azure subscriptions for development, testing, and production environments. The governance team needs to ensure that every new subscription automatically includes a consistent baseline consisting of Azure Policy definitions, role assignments, and a predefined resource group structure. The team wants to package these governance components into a single deployable artifact that can be applied to any subscription with minimal manual effort. Which Azure feature should the team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct choice because it is specifically designed to orchestrate the deployment of a consistent baseline—including Azure Policy definitions, role assignments, and resource groups—as a single, versioned, and repeatable artifact. Unlike other tools, Blueprints packages these governance components together and can be applied to any subscription with minimal manual effort, ensuring every new subscription automatically inherits the defined baseline.

Answer

Azure Policy

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Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates

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Azure Management Groups

Question 7

Which Azure service provides a globally distributed content delivery network with DDoS protection and Web Application Firewall capabilities?

Accepted Answer

Azure Front Door. Azure Front Door is a global, scalable entry point that provides a content delivery network (CDN) with built-in DDoS protection and Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities. It operates at Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) and uses Microsoft's global edge network to accelerate and secure web applications. Unlike a standard CDN, Front Door integrates intelligent traffic routing, SSL termination, and application-layer security in a single service.

Answer

Azure CDN with WAF

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Azure Application Gateway

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Azure DDoS Protection Standard

Question 8

A company needs to store and analyze large amounts of unstructured log data at low cost. Which Azure storage solution is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage with cool tier. Azure Blob Storage with cool tier is the most appropriate solution because it is optimized for storing large amounts of unstructured log data at low cost. The cool tier offers lower storage costs than the hot tier, making it ideal for infrequently accessed data like logs, while still providing high durability and scalability. Blob Storage natively supports unstructured data such as text logs, binary files, and streaming data, which aligns perfectly with the requirement.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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Azure Table Storage

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Azure Files

Question 9

Which aspect of cloud computing allows organizations to focus on their core business rather than managing IT infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

Stop spending money running and maintaining data centers. Cloud computing shifts the burden of hardware procurement, maintenance, power, cooling, and physical security from the organization to the cloud provider. This operational overhead elimination allows IT teams to redirect their efforts toward application development, data analytics, and business innovation rather than racking servers or patching firmware. The core value proposition is the transfer of undifferentiated heavy lifting to the provider.

Answer

Always having the maximum number of resources available

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Paying a lower price for premium hardware

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Getting free storage for all business data

Question 10

Which Azure feature provides a way to organize and manage access to resources by creating a hierarchy above subscriptions?

Accepted Answer

Management Groups. Management Groups provide a hierarchical structure above Azure subscriptions, enabling centralized policy and access management across multiple subscriptions. This allows you to apply Azure Policy and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) at a higher level, which then cascades down to all child subscriptions and resource groups within the hierarchy.

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Resource groups

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Azure tags

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Azure tenants

Question 11

A web application experiences intermittent performance issues. A developer wants to see the exact path a user request takes through multiple services. Which Azure capability enables this?

Accepted Answer

Azure Application Insights distributed tracing. Azure Application Insights distributed tracing is the correct capability because it provides end-to-end tracking of a user request as it flows across multiple services, components, and dependencies. It uses correlation IDs and telemetry to reconstruct the exact path, latency, and failures at each hop, which is essential for diagnosing intermittent performance issues in a distributed application.

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Azure Monitor Metrics

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Azure Log Analytics queries

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Azure Network Watcher

Question 12

What does 'high availability' mean in Azure?

Accepted Answer

Services that remain operational and accessible with minimal planned or unplanned downtime. High availability in Azure refers to the ability of services and resources to remain operational and accessible despite failures, with minimal planned or unplanned downtime. It is achieved through redundancy, fault tolerance, and automatic failover mechanisms, such as Azure Availability Zones and Availability Sets, which ensure that if one component fails, another takes over without significant interruption.

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Resources that are accessible from any device regardless of operating system

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Resources that can be scaled up to handle maximum load

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Data that is encrypted and protected from unauthorized access

Question 13

A company wants to migrate an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure. They require full administrative control over the database engine, including the ability to configure SQL Server Agent jobs and use cross-database queries. They also want to avoid patching the operating system. Which Azure service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance. Azure SQL Managed Instance is the correct choice because it provides near 100% compatibility with on-premises SQL Server, including full administrative control over the database engine, support for SQL Server Agent jobs, and cross-database queries. It also offloads OS patching to Microsoft, meeting the requirement to avoid OS maintenance.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

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SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

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Azure Database for SQL

Question 14

Which Azure service provides a fully managed, cloud-based backup solution for protecting Azure VMs, SQL databases, and on-premises servers?

Accepted Answer

Azure Backup. Azure Backup is the correct service because it provides a fully managed, cloud-based backup solution specifically designed to protect Azure VMs, SQL databases, and on-premises servers. It leverages the Azure Backup vault to store recovery points and supports policy-based scheduling, long-term retention, and application-consistent backups for these workloads.

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Azure Site Recovery

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Azure Archive Storage

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Azure Blob Storage snapshots

Question 15

An application deployed on Azure Virtual Machines needs to be resilient to failures within a single Azure region. The VMs are placed across multiple physically separate locations within the region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. What is this feature called?

Accepted Answer

Availability zone. Availability zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By placing VMs across different zones, you protect your application from a single point of failure within the region, such as a datacenter outage. This is the correct feature for achieving intra-region resilience.

Answer

Availability set

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Region pair

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Resource group