AZ-900 Practice Exam 58 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A company hosts a web application in the West US region on two Azure virtual machines that are in the same virtual network. The application handles user sessions that must persist on the same virtual machine for the duration of a checkout process. The company needs to load balance incoming HTTP traffic across the two virtual machines. If one virtual machine becomes unhealthy, the load balancer must automatically stop sending new traffic to that machine. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Application Gateway. Azure Application Gateway is correct because it provides HTTP/HTTPS layer-7 load balancing with session affinity (also known as sticky sessions) using cookie-based persistence, which ensures that all requests from a user during the checkout process are routed to the same virtual machine. It also includes built-in health probes that automatically stop sending traffic to an unhealthy backend VM, meeting both requirements precisely.

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Answer

Azure Front Door

Question 2

A company is evaluating cloud service models. They need to migrate an existing application that requires full control over the operating system and custom software installations. They do not want to manage the underlying physical hardware. Which cloud service model best fits this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, including virtual machines with full control over the guest operating system. This allows the company to install custom software and manage the OS while the cloud provider handles the underlying physical hardware, such as servers, storage, and networking. The requirement for full OS control and custom software installations excludes PaaS and SaaS, which abstract away the OS layer.

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

On-premises deployment

Question 3

A company is developing a REST API that processes incoming HTTP requests. The API usage is highly unpredictable; sometimes it receives thousands of requests per minute, and at other times it receives zero requests for hours. The company wants to pay only for the compute time consumed when the API code is actually executing. They also want Microsoft to automatically handle scaling and maintenance of the underlying server infrastructure. Which Azure compute service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Functions (Consumption plan). Azure Functions with the Consumption plan is the correct choice because it is a serverless compute service that executes code only when triggered by incoming HTTP requests, automatically scaling to handle unpredictable workloads. The Consumption plan charges only for the compute time consumed during execution, with no cost when the function is idle, and Microsoft fully manages the underlying infrastructure, including scaling and maintenance.

Answer

Azure App Service (Basic tier)

Answer

Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure Logic Apps

Question 4

A company is adopting a landing zone approach in Azure. The governance team wants to automatically provision a standardized environment for each new Azure subscription. The environment must include: a predefined set of Azure Policy assignments (e.g., enforce resource tagging), specific RBAC role assignments for a central operations team, and a baseline resource group containing a storage account with a specific configuration. The team wants to package all these components into a single, versioned object that can be assigned to a management group and updated over time as requirements change. Which Azure governance service should the team use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct service because it is designed to orchestrate the deployment of a repeatable, versioned environment that includes Azure Policy assignments, RBAC role assignments, and resource groups/templates as a single, composable artifact. Unlike Azure Policy alone, Blueprints can package multiple governance components together and assign them to management groups or subscriptions, with versioning support for updates over time.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Management Groups

Answer

Azure Resource Graph

Question 5

A company is migrating its customer relationship management (CRM) system to a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider. The provider manages the application, runtime, middleware, and infrastructure. The company's IT security team is concerned about who is responsible for protecting the company's data and managing user access. Based on the shared responsibility model for cloud computing, which statement is correct?

Accepted Answer

The company is responsible for managing user access and protecting their own data within the SaaS application.. In the shared responsibility model for SaaS, the provider manages the application, runtime, middleware, and infrastructure, but the customer retains responsibility for securing their own data and managing user access. This includes tasks such as data classification, identity and access management (IAM), and ensuring compliance with internal policies. Option C correctly identifies that the company must handle user access and data protection within the SaaS application.

Answer

The SaaS provider is responsible for everything, including data classification and user access control.

Answer

The company is responsible for the security of the application itself, including patching vulnerabilities in the CRM software.

Answer

The SaaS provider is responsible for physical security of data centers, and the company is responsible for patching the operating system of the servers hosting the CRM.

Question 6

A company is deploying a critical internal application in Azure. The application will run on two virtual machines. The solution must guarantee that the virtual machines are placed on separate physical servers and separate racks to minimize the impact of hardware failures. Which Azure feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Availability set. An availability set ensures that virtual machines are distributed across multiple fault domains (separate physical servers and racks) and update domains within an Azure datacenter. By placing the two VMs in the same availability set, Azure guarantees they will be on different physical hardware, minimizing the impact of a single hardware failure.

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Answer

Availability zone

Answer

Virtual network

Question 7

A company is designing a highly available application deployment in Azure. The solution must ensure that virtual machines are placed in physically separate data centers within the same Azure region to protect against a single data center failure. Which Azure feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Availability Zone. Availability Zones are physically separate data centers within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across multiple zones, the application remains available even if a single data center fails, meeting the requirement for physical separation within the same region.

Answer

Availability Set

Answer

Virtual Machine Scale Set

Answer

Azure Resource Manager

Question 8

A company is moving from an on-premises data center to the cloud. Previously, they paid a large upfront sum for hardware and then annual maintenance fees. Now they pay a monthly subscription based on actual usage of compute and storage. This shift represents moving from which type of expenditure to which?

Accepted Answer

From CapEx to OpEx. Option B is correct because the scenario describes a shift from paying a large upfront sum for hardware (a capital expenditure, or CapEx) to a monthly subscription based on actual usage (an operational expenditure, or OpEx). In cloud computing, CapEx involves significant upfront costs for physical infrastructure, while OpEx involves ongoing, pay-as-you-go costs for services like compute and storage. This transition is a fundamental benefit of cloud adoption, allowing organizations to avoid large initial investments and instead pay for what they consume.

Answer

From OpEx to CapEx

Answer

From variable to fixed costs

Answer

From direct to indirect costs

Question 9

A company is evaluating cloud deployment models. They need to keep sensitive data on-premises due to regulations but want to use Azure for development and testing workloads. Which cloud deployment model is most suitable?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud deployment model is most suitable because it combines on-premises infrastructure (private cloud) with public cloud services like Azure. This allows the company to keep sensitive data on-premises to meet regulatory compliance while leveraging Azure for development and testing workloads, which do not have the same data residency constraints.

Answer

Public cloud

Answer

Private cloud

Answer

Community cloud

Question 10

A company is migrating a legacy customer relationship management (CRM) application to Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS). The application runs on Windows Server and uses a third-party database. The company's IT team will manage the application and database software. However, they want to minimize their operational overhead for tasks that Azure can handle automatically. According to the shared responsibility model, which of the following tasks is the responsibility of Microsoft?

Accepted Answer

Replacing a failed physical hard disk drive in the Azure data center.. In the shared responsibility model, Microsoft is responsible for the 'physical' aspects of the cloud, including the hardware, network, and data center infrastructure. Replacing a failed physical hard disk drive is a physical infrastructure task that falls under Microsoft's responsibility, as the customer has no access to the underlying hardware in an IaaS environment.

Answer

Applying security updates to the CRM application code.

Answer

Configuring firewall rules within the virtual network.

Answer

Installing the latest Windows Server security patches on the virtual machine.

Question 11

A company is migrating its on-premises virtual machines (VMs) to Azure using the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. The VMs run a custom legacy application that requires specific OS-level configurations. The company's IT team wants to understand which party is responsible for applying operating system security patches after the migration. According to the shared responsibility model, who is responsible for patching the OS of the Azure VMs?

Accepted Answer

The company is responsible for patching the operating system on the virtual machines.. In the shared responsibility model for IaaS, the customer retains control over the operating system, including applying security patches. Microsoft manages the physical host, hypervisor, and Azure infrastructure, but the customer is responsible for OS-level configurations and updates on their virtual machines. This applies to both Windows and Linux VMs, regardless of whether the OS is provided by Azure or the customer.

Answer

Microsoft is fully responsible for applying OS patches to the virtual machines.

Answer

Responsibility is shared equally between Microsoft and the company for OS patching.

Answer

Responsibility depends on whether the VM uses Windows or Linux; Microsoft patches Windows VMs and the company patches Linux VMs.

Question 12

A company is developing a web application that will be deployed to Azure App Service. The application experiences unpredictable spikes in traffic, and the company wants the number of instances to automatically increase during high demand and decrease during low demand to optimize costs. The company also needs to use a custom domain name and ensure the application is accessible over HTTPS. Which App Service plan tier should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

Standard. The Standard tier is the correct choice because it supports all three requirements: autoscaling (the ability to automatically increase or decrease the number of instances based on traffic), custom domains, and HTTPS (SNI-based SSL/TLS binding). The Free and Shared tiers do not support autoscaling or custom domains, and the Basic tier supports custom domains and HTTPS but lacks autoscaling.

Answer

Free

Answer

Shared

Answer

Basic

Question 13

A company is considering moving its on-premises workloads to the cloud. They want to reduce their carbon footprint by using a cloud provider that uses renewable energy. Which cloud computing benefit is most directly related to this goal?

Accepted Answer

C) Sustainability. Option C is correct because sustainability directly addresses the goal of reducing carbon footprint through the use of renewable energy. Cloud providers like Microsoft Azure invest in renewable energy projects and carbon offset programs, enabling customers to lower their environmental impact by consolidating workloads in energy-efficient data centers. This benefit is explicitly tied to environmental responsibility, not operational metrics like uptime or resource scaling.

Answer

A) High availability

Answer

B) Scalability

Answer

D) Elasticity

Question 14

A company runs a legacy application on-premises that cannot be migrated to the cloud due to strict data sovereignty laws requiring customer data to remain within the country's physical borders. The company wants to use Azure's advanced analytics services to gain insights from the data. They plan to keep the data on-premises but run the analytics workloads in Azure. Which cloud deployment model should they use?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud model is correct because it combines on-premises infrastructure (for data sovereignty compliance) with Azure's public cloud services (for advanced analytics). This allows the company to keep customer data within the country's physical borders while leveraging Azure's analytics workloads, such as Azure Synapse Analytics or Azure Machine Learning, without migrating the data to the cloud.

Answer

Public cloud

Answer

Private cloud

Answer

Community cloud

Question 15

A company plans to use an infrastructure-as-code approach to deploy its Azure resources. The company wants to define all resources (virtual networks, virtual machines, storage accounts) in a declarative JSON file. This file must ensure that resources are created in the correct order, handle dependencies automatically, and allow the same configuration to be deployed to multiple environments (dev, test, production) with parameterized values. The solution should be a native Azure feature. Which Azure feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are the native Azure feature for infrastructure-as-code using a declarative JSON format. They define resources, handle dependencies automatically via the 'dependsOn' element, and support parameterization for deploying the same template to multiple environments (dev, test, production) by passing different parameter files. This directly matches the scenario's requirements for declarative JSON, dependency management, and multi-environment deployment.

Answer

Azure Policy

Answer

Azure Blueprints

Answer

Azure Automation State Configuration

Question 16

A company is migrating its on-premises infrastructure to Azure. In the past, to provision a new server, the IT team had to submit a formal request to the data center operations team. The operations team would then procure hardware, install the operating system, configure networking, and make the server available. This process often took several weeks. After migrating to Azure, a developer can log into the Azure portal, select a virtual machine configuration, and have it provisioned and running within minutes, without any need to interact with Azure support or operations staff. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best illustrate?

Accepted Answer

On-demand self-service. The scenario describes a developer provisioning a virtual machine directly through the Azure portal without any human intervention from IT or operations staff. This aligns with the cloud characteristic of on-demand self-service, where users can provision and manage computing resources as needed automatically, without requiring manual approval or interaction with service providers.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Question 17

A company is moving its IT infrastructure to the cloud to avoid large upfront hardware purchases and instead pay a predictable monthly fee. Which cloud benefit does this represent?

Accepted Answer

Consumption-based pricing. Consumption-based pricing is a cloud benefit where customers pay only for the resources they use (e.g., compute hours, storage GBs) rather than making large upfront capital expenditures. This model shifts costs from CapEx to OpEx, enabling predictable monthly billing based on actual consumption. The scenario explicitly describes avoiding upfront hardware purchases and paying a predictable monthly fee, which directly aligns with this pay-as-you-go model.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Elasticity

Answer

Scalability

Question 18

A company is developing a custom web application that will be deployed to Azure. The development team wants to minimize operational overhead and avoid any responsibility for managing the underlying operating system, runtime, or middleware. They want to focus solely on writing application code and managing data. Which cloud service model should the company use for this application?

Accepted Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS). Platform as a Service (PaaS) is the correct model because it abstracts the underlying OS, runtime, and middleware, allowing developers to focus solely on writing application code and managing data. Azure App Service is a PaaS offering that provides automatic patching, load balancing, and scaling without any responsibility for the host OS or runtime environment. This directly matches the requirement to minimize operational overhead and avoid managing infrastructure layers.

Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Question 19

A company runs a seasonal e-commerce application. During holidays, traffic increases tenfold, but the company does not want to over-provision resources for the rest of the year. They want to add or remove server capacity automatically based on real-time demand and pay only for what they use. Which cloud computing characteristic does this scenario describe?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the cloud computing characteristic that enables automatic scaling of resources up or down based on real-time demand. In this scenario, the e-commerce application needs to handle a tenfold traffic increase during holidays without over-provisioning for the rest of the year, which is exactly what elasticity provides by adding or removing server capacity dynamically and charging only for what is used.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Reliability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Question 20

A company plans to deploy two Azure virtual machines that host a critical web application. Both VMs will be in the same Azure region and the same virtual network. The company’s requirements are: 1) During Azure platform-initiated maintenance (e.g., OS updates), at least one VM must remain running. 2) If a hardware failure occurs in the server rack that hosts one VM, the other VM must not be affected. 3) The solution must not incur additional costs beyond the VMs themselves. Which Azure feature should the company configure?

Accepted Answer

Availability Set. An Availability Set distributes VMs across multiple fault domains (different server racks with independent power and networking) and update domains (groups that undergo platform maintenance sequentially). This ensures that during Azure-initiated maintenance, only one update domain is rebooted at a time, leaving at least one VM running, and that a hardware failure in one fault domain does not affect VMs in other fault domains. Availability Sets are free of charge beyond the cost of the VMs themselves, meeting all requirements.

Answer

Availability Zones

Answer

Azure Site Recovery

Answer

Azure Load Balancer