AZ-900 Practice Test 26 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A large enterprise manages Azure subscriptions for three business units: Sales, Research & Development, and Information Technology. Each business unit has its own Azure subscription. The central governance team needs to ensure that a specific set of Azure Policy definitions (e.g., restricting allowed regions to 'East US' only) is applied to all current and future subscriptions belonging to these three business units. The team wants to minimize administrative overhead and ensure that any new subscription created for a business unit automatically inherits the same policies. Which Azure feature should the team use to achieve this goal?

Accepted Answer

Create a management group for each business unit, place the corresponding subscription inside each management group, and assign the policy set to each management group.. Option B is correct because management groups provide a hierarchical structure above subscriptions, allowing Azure Policy assignments to be inherited by all subscriptions within a management group. By placing each business unit's subscription into its own management group and assigning the policy set (initiative) to each management group, the central governance team ensures that any current or future subscription under those management groups automatically inherits the policies, minimizing administrative overhead.

Answer

Assign each policy definition individually to every subscription.

Answer

Create a single resource group at the tenant root level and assign the policy definitions to that resource group.

Answer

Use Azure Blueprints to deploy a new subscription with the policies, then manually move each existing subscription into the blueprint's management group.

Question 2

A manufacturing company is evaluating whether to migrate its on-premises workloads to Azure. The IT team calculates that the total cost of running the equivalent compute and storage resources in Azure is lower than operating its own datacenter. They attribute this cost advantage to the fact that Azure purchases servers, networking gear, and power in massive quantities and passes the savings on to customers by spreading the fixed costs across a vast number of tenants. This cost-saving benefit is a direct illustration of which cloud computing concept?

Accepted Answer

Economies of scale. The scenario describes a cost advantage that arises because Azure buys hardware and energy in bulk, reducing per-unit costs and spreading fixed expenses across many customers. This is the direct definition of economies of scale, a core cloud concept where large-scale operations lower the average cost per unit, enabling providers to offer services at a lower price than individual organizations could achieve on-premises.

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Question 3

A retail company runs an e-commerce application on Azure. During the holiday season, the application experiences a sudden 10x increase in traffic. The company uses Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets configured with autoscale rules based on CPU usage. The application automatically adds virtual machines during the peak and removes them when traffic subsides. Which benefit of cloud computing does this configuration primarily demonstrate?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. This configuration demonstrates elasticity, which is the ability of a cloud system to automatically scale resources up or down based on demand. Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets with autoscale rules based on CPU usage dynamically add VMs during traffic spikes and remove them when traffic subsides, directly matching resource allocation to workload requirements. This is a core benefit of cloud computing that enables cost efficiency and performance optimization without manual intervention.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Latency-based routing

Question 4

A large enterprise manages hundreds of Azure subscriptions. The central governance team wants to ensure that every resource deployed across all subscriptions always has two required tags: 'Department' and 'CostCenter'. If a resource is created without these tags, the governance policy must automatically add the missing tags with placeholder values (e.g., 'Department: Unknown') and generate a compliance report. The team does not want to rely on user training or manual audits. Which Azure service should the team use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Azure Policy. Azure Policy is the correct service because it can enforce tagging rules across all subscriptions in a management group. By using a policy definition with the 'modify' effect, Azure Policy can automatically add missing tags with placeholder values (e.g., 'Department: Unknown') during resource creation or at scale via remediation tasks. It also integrates with Azure Policy compliance reports to provide continuous governance without relying on user training or manual audits.

Answer

Azure Cost Management

Answer

Azure Blueprints

Answer

Azure Resource Groups

Question 5

A startup wants to run a web application without managing the underlying servers. They only want to upload their code and let the cloud provider handle the runtime, scaling, and maintenance. Which cloud service model is this?

Accepted Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS). Platform as a Service (PaaS) is the correct model because it provides a managed hosting environment where the startup can deploy their web application code without managing the underlying servers, operating systems, or runtime infrastructure. Azure App Service is a prime example of PaaS, handling automatic scaling, patching, and load balancing while the customer only focuses on code and data.

Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Function as a Service (FaaS)

Question 6

A retail company runs its e-commerce platform on Azure App Service. The platform is configured with an autoscale rule that adds web server instances when CPU usage exceeds 75%. During a holiday flash sale, traffic surges from a baseline of 1,000 concurrent users to over 100,000 concurrent users within minutes. The platform automatically provisions additional instances to handle the load, and once the sale ends, it scales back down. This ability to rapidly adjust resources to meet varying demand is a direct example of which fundamental characteristic of cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. Rapid elasticity is the cloud characteristic that enables resources to scale out (add instances) and scale in (remove instances) automatically and quickly in response to demand changes. In this scenario, the autoscale rule on Azure App Service detects CPU usage exceeding 75% and provisions additional web server instances within minutes to handle the surge from 1,000 to over 100,000 concurrent users, then scales back down after the flash sale ends. This dynamic, near-instantaneous adjustment of capacity is the direct embodiment of rapid elasticity, distinguishing it from manual provisioning or fixed capacity models.

Answer

On-demand self-service

Answer

Measured service

Answer

Resource pooling

Question 7

A US-based financial services company must ensure that all customer data remains within the United States at all times to comply with regulatory requirements. The company plans to replicate its Azure SQL database between two Azure regions for disaster recovery. The solution must guarantee that if a region experiences a major outage, the paired region is prioritized for recovery. Additionally, the solution should ensure that during planned maintenance, only one region in the pair is updated at a time. Which Azure architecture feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Region Pairs. Region Pairs are the correct choice because Azure guarantees that each region is paired with another region within the same geography (e.g., East US with West US) to provide physical isolation, prioritized disaster recovery, and sequential planned maintenance updates. This ensures that during an outage, recovery is directed to the paired region, and during maintenance, only one region in the pair is updated at a time, meeting the company's regulatory and availability requirements.

Answer

Availability Zones

Answer

Resource Groups

Answer

Azure Policy

Question 8

A software company develops a microservices application using Docker containers. The application consists of multiple services that need to be deployed, scaled, and managed together. The company wants to use Azure to orchestrate and manage these containers without provisioning or managing the underlying virtual machines. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed Kubernetes orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized microservices. AKS abstracts the underlying virtual machines, allowing the company to focus on application logic without provisioning or managing the VM infrastructure, which directly matches the requirement for orchestration without VM management.

Answer

Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure App Service

Answer

Azure Batch

Question 9

A startup wants to quickly deploy a web application without worrying about server maintenance. They only want to focus on writing code and deploying it. Which cloud service model best fits this requirement?

Accepted Answer

B) Platform as a Service (PaaS). Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides a managed hosting environment where the cloud provider handles the underlying infrastructure (servers, storage, networking, OS patches) while the customer focuses solely on deploying and managing their own code and data. This directly matches the startup's requirement to avoid server maintenance and concentrate on writing and deploying code.

Answer

A) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

C) Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

D) Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Question 10

An IT team manages a customer relationship management (CRM) application hosted on a single Azure virtual machine. As the number of users grows, the CPU and memory usage on the VM consistently exceed 90%. The team decides to increase the VM size from Standard_D2s_v3 (2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) to Standard_D8s_v3 (8 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM) to handle the increased load. The application is not designed to run on multiple servers simultaneously. This approach represents which type of scaling in the cloud?

Accepted Answer

Vertical scaling. Increasing the VM size from Standard_D2s_v3 to Standard_D8s_v3 adds more vCPUs and RAM to the same virtual machine, which is the definition of vertical scaling (scaling up). This approach is appropriate because the application cannot run on multiple servers simultaneously, so adding resources to the existing single VM is the only viable option to handle the increased load.

Answer

Horizontal scaling

Answer

Diagonal scaling

Answer

Auto-scaling

Question 11

What is the Microsoft Trust Center?

Accepted Answer

A website providing information about Microsoft's security, privacy, and compliance practices. The Microsoft Trust Center is a dedicated website that provides detailed information about Microsoft's security, privacy, and compliance practices. It serves as a central resource for customers to review certifications, audit reports, and documentation that demonstrate how Microsoft cloud services adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements.

Answer

A portal for managing Azure subscriptions and billing

Answer

A service for encrypting data stored in Azure

Answer

A compliance management tool for creating organizational policies

Question 12

Which Azure service enables businesses to migrate and modernize their SQL Server databases to the cloud with built-in intelligence?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering specifically designed for SQL Server workloads. It provides built-in intelligence features such as automatic tuning, performance insights, and advanced threat protection, making it the correct service for migrating and modernizing SQL Server databases to the cloud.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics

Question 13

What does 'geo-distribution' mean in cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

Deploying applications and data across multiple geographic locations worldwide. Geo-distribution in cloud computing refers to deploying applications, data, and services across multiple geographically separated data centers or regions. This ensures low latency for users worldwide, improves availability through redundancy, and supports disaster recovery by isolating failures to a single region. Azure implements this through paired regions and traffic routing policies like performance-based routing in Azure Traffic Manager.

Answer

Distributing compute resources across multiple virtual machines in a single data center

Answer

Routing network traffic to the fastest available server

Answer

Encrypting data before sending it over the network

Question 14

What is the key difference between capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) in the context of cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

CapEx is upfront investment in owned infrastructure; OpEx is ongoing pay-as-you-go service costs. Option B is correct because capital expenditure (CapEx) involves a large upfront investment to purchase and own physical infrastructure (servers, storage, networking), while operational expenditure (OpEx) represents ongoing, consumption-based costs where you pay only for the resources you use (e.g., per-hour VM billing, per-GB storage fees). In cloud computing, the shift from CapEx to OpEx is a fundamental financial model change, enabling organizations to avoid large capital outlays and instead align costs with actual usage.

Answer

CapEx is for cloud spending; OpEx is for on-premises spending

Answer

CapEx and OpEx are identical in cloud environments

Answer

OpEx covers hardware costs; CapEx covers software licensing costs

Question 15

Which Azure service provides a fully managed, cloud-based data integration service for creating data-driven workflows?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Factory. Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a fully managed, cloud-based data integration service that allows you to create, schedule, and orchestrate data-driven workflows (pipelines). It supports over 90 built-in connectors to ingest, transform, and move data across on-premises and cloud sources, making it the correct choice for this scenario.

Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics

Answer

Azure Databricks

Answer

Azure Stream Analytics