AZ-900 Practice Exam 56 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A financial services firm uses a hybrid cloud strategy. They run customer-facing applications in a public cloud and store sensitive customer data in an on-premises data center to meet regulatory compliance. The firm wants to allow its applications in the public cloud to securely access the on-premises data when needed. Which cloud deployment model best describes this setup?

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

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. The scenario describes a hybrid cloud deployment model, which combines a public cloud (for customer-facing applications) with an on-premises private cloud (for sensitive data storage) and enables secure connectivity between them, typically through VPN or dedicated circuits like Azure ExpressRoute. This allows the firm to meet regulatory compliance by keeping sensitive data on-premises while leveraging public cloud scalability for applications.

Answer

Public cloud

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Private cloud

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Community cloud

Question 2

A company plans to migrate a multi-tier web application to Azure. The frontend web tier must automatically scale out based on CPU utilization, and Microsoft must manage the underlying virtual machines and operating system. The backend tier requires a relational database with built-in high availability and automatic backups. The company wants to minimize administrative overhead. Which two Azure services should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database. The frontend requires Microsoft-managed VMs and OS, which is a PaaS offering like Azure App Service. Azure App Service provides automatic scaling based on CPU utilization without managing underlying infrastructure. For the backend, a relational database with built-in high availability and automatic backups is best served by Azure SQL Database, which is fully managed with minimal administrative overhead. Option A (Azure Virtual Machines + Azure SQL Managed Instance) does not meet the requirement because Azure Virtual Machines is IaaS, where the customer manages the OS and VMs. Option C (AKS + Cosmos DB) involves managing Kubernetes clusters and Cosmos DB is NoSQL, not relational. Option D (Azure Functions + Table Storage) is serverless but not relational. Therefore, only option B satisfies both requirements.

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines and Azure SQL Managed Instance

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Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Cosmos DB

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Azure Functions and Azure Table Storage

Question 3

A company has multiple Azure subscriptions for different projects. They want to apply the same set of Azure policies and role assignments to all subscriptions under a specific department, and they plan to add more subscriptions in the future. Which Azure construct should they use?

Accepted Answer

Management group. A management group is the correct construct because it allows you to manage governance, policy, and role assignments across multiple Azure subscriptions hierarchically. By placing all subscriptions for a department under a single management group, you can apply the same Azure Policy and role-based access control (RBAC) assignments once, and any new subscriptions added to that group will automatically inherit those settings.

Answer

Resource group

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Azure Policy initiative

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Azure Blueprint

Question 4

A company runs multiple virtual machines (VMs) in Azure. The IT team notices that their VMs are hosted on physical hardware that is shared among multiple customers. The team has no ability to specify or control which physical server their VMs run on, and they cannot see the underlying hardware details. The VMs are, however, always available when requested. This scenario exemplifies which essential characteristic of cloud computing as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)?

Accepted Answer

Resource pooling. Resource pooling is the correct answer because the scenario describes the cloud provider's ability to serve multiple customers from the same physical hardware, with the customer having no control or knowledge of the exact underlying server. This is a core NIST characteristic where computing resources (including storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth) are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. The fact that VMs are always available when requested further aligns with the elasticity and on-demand nature of resource pooling, but the key is the shared, abstracted infrastructure.

Answer

On-demand self-service

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Broad network access

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Rapid elasticity

Question 5

Which Azure service provides a way to run Windows-based desktop applications from any device without installing them locally?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Desktop. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs on Azure. It enables users to access full Windows desktops and applications from virtually any device (including non-Windows devices) without requiring local installation, as the applications execute on remote session hosts in Azure.

Answer

Azure App Service

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Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines

Question 6

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

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A service for encrypting data stored in Azure

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A compliance management tool for creating organizational policies

Question 7

A company uses Azure Policy to enforce resource tagging. The governance team creates a policy that requires all resources in a subscription to have a 'CostCenter' tag. However, the team does not want to block resource creation if the tag is missing. Instead, they want the policy to automatically add the tag with a default value of 'Unassigned' to any new resource that is created without the tag. Which Azure Policy effect should the team configure in the policy definition?

Accepted Answer

Modify. The Modify effect is correct because it allows Azure Policy to automatically add or change a tag on a resource during creation or update without blocking the operation. This matches the requirement to add the 'CostCenter' tag with a default value of 'Unassigned' to any new resource missing it, while still permitting resource creation.

Answer

Deny

Answer

Audit

Answer

DeployIfNotExists

Question 8

Which statement best describes the 'economies of scale' advantage of cloud computing for customers?

Accepted Answer

Cloud providers achieve lower per-unit costs through massive purchasing power, offering customers lower prices. Economies of scale in cloud computing means that cloud providers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud operate at a massive scale, allowing them to negotiate bulk discounts on hardware, power, and cooling. These cost savings are passed down to customers in the form of lower pay-as-you-go prices, making it cheaper for individual organizations than running their own on-premises data centers.

Answer

Organizations save money by eliminating all IT staff when using the cloud

Answer

Organizations can use cloud resources without paying anything

Answer

Organizations pay less because cloud resources are lower quality than enterprise hardware

Question 9

A company needs to run a containerized application without managing any virtual machines or cluster orchestration. Which Azure service is best suited for this?

Accepted Answer

Azure Container Instances. Azure Container Instances (ACI) is the correct choice because it allows you to run a containerized application directly on Azure without provisioning or managing any underlying virtual machines, cluster orchestration, or scheduling. ACI provides a serverless, per-second billing model, making it ideal for simple, isolated containers that do not require the complexity of a full orchestration platform.

Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service

Answer

Azure App Service

Answer

Azure Batch

Question 10

A financial services company runs a critical trading application in its on-premises data center. The company is migrating some workloads to Azure and requires a dedicated, private network connection between its on-premises network and Azure. The connection must not use the public internet, must provide consistent latency and higher bandwidth than a typical internet-based VPN, and must be backed by a service-level agreement (SLA) for availability. Which Azure service should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

ExpressRoute. ExpressRoute is the correct choice because it provides a dedicated, private connection between on-premises networks and Azure that bypasses the public internet entirely. This ensures consistent latency, higher bandwidth options (up to 100 Gbps), and a financially backed SLA of at least 99.95% availability, meeting all the stated requirements for a critical trading application.

Answer

Azure VPN Gateway

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Azure Firewall

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Azure Front Door

Question 11

Match each Azure service to its primary function.

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Machines: Provides IaaS virtual machines for cloud computing.. The correct matches are: Azure Virtual Machines (IaaS), Azure Functions (serverless compute), Azure Queue Storage (simple messaging), and Azure Service Bus (enterprise messaging). Common confusions include mixing up serverless with IaaS and simple messaging with enterprise brokers.

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines: Serverless compute that runs code in response to events.

Answer

Azure Queue Storage: Enterprise message broker with advanced features like topics.

Question 12

A company has a policy that requires all storage accounts to have secure transfer enabled. They want to automatically audit all existing storage accounts and enforce the setting on new ones. They also want to automatically fix non-compliant new storage accounts. Which Azure Policy effect combination should they use?

Accepted Answer

D) modify and audit. The correct combination is 'audit' and 'modify'. 'audit' logs non-compliant existing storage accounts without changing them, satisfying the audit requirement. 'modify' automatically changes the secure transfer property on new storage accounts during creation, enforcing the policy without blocking deployment. 'deployIfNotExists' is incorrect because it only deploys additional resources (e.g., a diagnostic setting), it does not modify properties of the resource itself.

Answer

A) audit and deny

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B) audit and deployIfNotExists

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C) append and deny

Question 13

A company manages multiple Azure subscriptions for different business units. They want to define a standard set of policies, such as allowed VM SKUs and required resource tags, and ensure these policies are always applied whenever a new subscription is created. Which Azure feature should they use to enforce governance at this level?

Accepted Answer

Azure Management Groups. Azure Management Groups allow you to organize subscriptions into a hierarchy and apply governance policies at the management group level. When a new subscription is created under a management group, it automatically inherits the policies assigned to that group, ensuring consistent enforcement across all subscriptions without manual intervention.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Resource Manager templates

Answer

Azure Blueprints

Question 14

Which Azure database service provides ACID-compliant transactional support with row-level locking, ideal for online retail order processing?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database engine that provides full ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliance and supports row-level locking, making it ideal for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads such as retail order processing. It ensures data integrity and concurrency control, which are critical for handling simultaneous order transactions without conflicts.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

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Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure Blob Storage

Question 15

Which Azure service provides application-level, request-based routing with session persistence for web workloads?

Accepted Answer

Azure Application Gateway. Azure Application Gateway is a Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) load balancer that provides application-level, request-based routing based on URL path, host headers, or other HTTP attributes. It also supports session persistence (also known as sticky sessions) using cookies, which ensures that all requests from a client during a session are directed to the same backend server. This makes it the correct choice for web workloads requiring request-level routing and session affinity.

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

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Azure Traffic Manager

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Azure Front Door

Question 16

Which Azure database service stores time-series data from IoT devices for long-term trend analysis and anomaly detection?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Explorer. Azure Data Explorer (ADX) is a fully managed, high-performance big data analytics service optimized for interactive analysis of large volumes of time-series and log data. It uses the Kusto Query Language (KQL) to ingest, index, and query streaming telemetry from IoT devices, enabling long-term trend analysis and anomaly detection through built-in time-series functions like `series_decompose()` and `series_fit_line()`.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Question 17

Which Azure service generates automatic recommendations for right-sizing, reserved instance purchasing, and idle resource cleanup?

Accepted Answer

Azure Advisor. Azure Advisor is a built-in, personalized cloud consultant that continuously analyzes your Azure resource configuration and usage telemetry. It then generates automatic recommendations across four pillars: cost (right-sizing, reserved instance purchases, idle resource cleanup), security, reliability, and operational excellence. This makes it the correct service for automated cost optimization suggestions.

Answer

Azure Cost Management budget alerts

Answer

Azure Pricing Calculator

Answer

Microsoft Defender for Cloud cost alerts

Question 18

A company has multiple Azure subscriptions that are managed by different departments. The governance team needs to ensure that every new subscription follows a standardized set of compliance requirements, including specific Azure Policy definitions, a predefined role assignment for a central security group, and a base set of network resources. The solution must be reusable and allow the governance team to update the requirements centrally, with changes automatically applied to all subscriptions that use the same definition. Which Azure service should the governance team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct choice because it enables the governance team to define a repeatable set of Azure resources and policies—including Azure Policy definitions, role assignments, and Resource Manager templates—that can be assigned to multiple subscriptions. When the blueprint definition is updated, all subscriptions using that blueprint receive the changes automatically, ensuring centralized compliance and versioning.

Answer

Azure Management Groups

Answer

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates

Answer

Azure Policy

Question 19

What does 'infrastructure as code' (IaC) mean in the context of Azure?

Accepted Answer

Defining Azure resources in configuration files that can be version-controlled and reused. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in Azure involves defining and managing Azure resources (e.g., virtual networks, VMs, storage accounts) using declarative configuration files such as ARM templates, Bicep, or Terraform. These files can be stored in version control (e.g., Git), enabling repeatable, consistent deployments and rollbacks through automation, rather than manual or imperative steps.

Answer

Writing code that runs directly on Azure hardware

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Using Azure CLI scripts to deploy one resource at a time imperatively

Answer

Converting physical server hardware into virtual machines

Question 20

Which Azure service provides a high-performance computing environment for running scientific, financial, and engineering simulations?

Accepted Answer

Azure Batch. Azure Batch is a cloud-based job scheduling and compute management service designed for large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. It automatically provisions and manages a pool of virtual machines, installs the required software, schedules tasks, and scales resources based on job demands, making it ideal for running scientific simulations, financial risk modeling, and engineering analysis.

Answer

Azure Functions

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Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure App Service