AZ-900 Practice Exam 64 — 20 Questions

Question 1

A multinational company has 10 Azure subscriptions, each managed by a different department. The central governance team wants to deploy a standardized environment that includes a specific network topology (virtual network, subnets, and network security groups), a set of Azure Policy definitions to enforce tagging and encryption, and a role assignment granting the 'Reader' role to a central security team in every subscription. The team must be able to update this standard definition in one place, and any changes should automatically apply to all existing deployments that were created from the definition. Which Azure service should they use?

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

Accepted Answer

Azure Blueprints. Azure Blueprints is the correct choice because it enables the central governance team to define a repeatable, versioned environment that includes network topology, Azure Policy definitions, and role assignments. Blueprints support versioning and automatic updates: when a blueprint is updated and published, existing blueprint assignments can be upgraded to apply the new definitions to all deployed resources, ensuring consistency across all 10 subscriptions.

Answer

Azure Policy

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Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates

Answer

Azure Management Groups

Question 2

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

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Fault tolerance

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Latency-based routing

Question 3

Which Azure governance tool provides a way to audit all changes made to resources in your Azure subscription?

Accepted Answer

Azure Activity Log. The Azure Activity Log is the correct tool because it provides a complete audit trail of all control-plane operations (management-plane actions) performed on resources in an Azure subscription. Every create, update, delete, and other write operation (PUT, POST, DELETE) is logged, enabling you to answer 'who, what, when, where, and how' for any change. This makes it the primary governance tool for auditing resource modifications.

Answer

Azure Monitor Metrics

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Azure Application Insights

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Azure Resource Health

Question 4

A company runs a web application on Azure App Service. During a marketing campaign, the application's traffic surges to five times its normal level. The application is configured to automatically add more instances to handle the increased load and then remove them when demand returns to normal. This ability to dynamically provision and de-provision resources based on real-time demand is a direct example of which cloud computing characteristic?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. The scenario describes automatically adding and removing App Service instances in response to real-time traffic spikes, which is the definition of elasticity. Elasticity is the ability to dynamically scale resources up or down to match demand, ensuring you only pay for what you use. In Azure, this is implemented via autoscale rules that adjust the instance count based on metrics like CPU or request queue length.

Answer

Scalability

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High availability

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Fault tolerance

Question 5

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

Accepted Answer

From CapEx to OpEx. This scenario describes a shift from Capital Expenditure (CapEx) to Operational Expenditure (OpEx). CapEx involves upfront purchases of physical assets like servers and storage, which are capitalized and depreciated over time. OpEx, on the other hand, is a pay-as-you-go model where costs are incurred based on actual usage, such as monthly cloud subscription fees for compute and storage resources.

Answer

From OpEx to CapEx

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From direct cost to indirect cost

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From variable cost to fixed cost

Question 6

A company is evaluating moving their workloads to Azure. They currently operate a small on-premises data center. Their IT manager notes that by using Azure, they will benefit from the fact that Microsoft operates many large data centers globally, which allows them to achieve lower network bandwidth costs and hardware procurement discounts. The company will not have to negotiate separate contracts for power and cooling. Which cloud computing concept does this benefit best illustrate?

Accepted Answer

Economies of scale. The scenario describes how Microsoft's global scale of operations—operating many large data centers—enables lower network bandwidth costs and hardware procurement discounts, and eliminates the need for separate power and cooling contracts. This directly illustrates economies of scale, where the average cost per unit decreases as the scale of operations increases, allowing Microsoft to pass these savings to customers. It is not about technical capabilities like availability, elasticity, or agility, but about the cost advantage derived from massive infrastructure investment.

Answer

High availability

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Elasticity

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Agility

Question 7

A company wants to protect their application against a failure that affects an entire data center within an Azure region. Which feature should they use to distribute their VMs across multiple physical locations within that region?

Accepted Answer

Availability Zones. Availability Zones are physically separate locations (each with independent power, cooling, and networking) within an Azure region. By deploying VMs across multiple zones, the application is protected from a failure that affects an entire data center, because each zone is a distinct data center or set of data centers.

Answer

Availability Set

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Azure Site Recovery

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Question 8

Which cloud computing benefit specifically refers to customers being able to access the latest technology without managing upgrades?

Accepted Answer

Always-current technology without customer-managed upgrades. One of the key benefits of cloud computing is that the cloud provider handles all hardware and software updates, patches, and version upgrades. Customers always have access to the latest features, security fixes, and performance improvements without needing to plan, test, or execute upgrade cycles themselves. This is a core value proposition of the consumption-based model, shifting operational overhead to the provider.

Answer

Economies of scale

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Geographic distribution of data centers

Answer

Predictable billing with reserved capacity

Question 9

What type of data does Azure Table Storage store?

Accepted Answer

Structured NoSQL data in a key-attribute entity model. Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-attribute store that stores structured, schema-less data. Each entity is a set of properties (attributes) with a partition key and row key, enabling fast access to semi-structured data like user profiles or device metadata.

Answer

Unstructured binary data like images and videos

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Relational data with complex joins and foreign keys

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Files shared via SMB protocol across Windows machines

Question 10

A company has a production resource group that contains several Azure virtual machines and a SQL database. The company wants to ensure that no user can accidentally delete these resources, but authorized administrators must still be able to modify the configuration and update the resources. The company needs a straightforward governance feature that can be applied directly to the resource group and can be removed only by an authorized user with the Owner role. Which Azure feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

A Delete lock on the resource group.. A Delete lock on the resource group prevents users from deleting the resource group and its resources, while still allowing authorized administrators with the Owner role to modify configurations and update resources. This lock can only be removed by a user with the Owner role, meeting the requirement for a straightforward governance feature applied directly to the resource group.

Answer

Azure Policy with a Deny effect to block resource deletions.

Answer

A Read-Only lock on the resource group.

Answer

An Azure RBAC role assignment that excludes the Delete action for all users.

Question 11

A company has a policy that all Azure resources must have a 'CostCenter' tag. The governance team wants to identify any resources that are missing the tag without preventing their creation. They need a compliance report generated automatically showing all non-compliant resources. Which Azure Policy effect should they use?

Accepted Answer

audit. The 'audit' effect is correct because it allows the company to monitor and report on resources that are missing the 'CostCenter' tag without blocking their creation. Azure Policy's audit effect logs a compliance event in the activity log for non-compliant resources, which can then be used to generate automatic compliance reports via Azure Policy's compliance dashboard or exported to Log Analytics. This meets the requirement of identifying non-compliant resources while not preventing their deployment.

Answer

deny

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deployIfNotExists

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append

Question 12

Which Azure service provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery for Azure VMs by replicating them to another region?

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery for Azure VMs. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for Azure VMs is the correct service because it provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery by orchestrating replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs from one region to another. It uses continuous replication with near-synchronous recovery point objectives (RPOs) and supports automated testing of failovers without impacting production workloads.

Answer

Azure Backup

Answer

Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)

Answer

Azure Zone-Redundant deployment

Question 13

A company has an application running on Azure VMs across multiple availability zones to protect against data center failures. They need to distribute incoming traffic evenly across all VMs in a single region. Which Azure load balancing solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Load Balancer. Azure Load Balancer operates at Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) and distributes incoming traffic across healthy VM instances in the backend pool. By deploying VMs across multiple availability zones within a single region, the Load Balancer can route traffic evenly to all zone-resilient VMs, providing high availability and load distribution without application-layer inspection.

Answer

Azure Application Gateway

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Azure Traffic Manager

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Azure Front Door

Question 14

Match each Azure security service to its role.

Accepted Answer

Azure Security Center: Unified infrastructure security management system that strengthens the security posture of your data centers.. Azure Security Center provides unified security management, Azure Sentinel offers SIEM/SOAR capabilities, Azure Firewall secures network traffic, and Azure DDoS Protection mitigates DDoS attacks. Common confusions include mixing the roles of Security Center and Sentinel.

Answer

Azure Security Center: Protects Azure applications from DDoS attacks.

Answer

Azure Sentinel: Unified infrastructure security management system that strengthens the security posture of your data centers.

Question 15

A company has multiple on-premises file servers that store user home directories and department shares. The company wants to migrate these file shares to Azure Files to eliminate on-premises server maintenance. However, users frequently access large files, and the company wants to cache the most frequently accessed files locally on a small Windows Server machine at each branch office to minimize latency and bandwidth usage. The company also wants a single unified namespace so users can access files using the same path regardless of whether the files are cached locally or stored in Azure. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure File Sync. Azure File Sync is the correct choice because it enables caching of frequently accessed files on a local Windows Server at each branch office while maintaining a single unified namespace (the same UNC path). It synchronizes files between Azure Files and on-premises servers, allowing users to access files locally for low latency and bandwidth savings, while changes are synced to Azure. This directly addresses the requirement to eliminate on-premises server maintenance by using Azure Files as the primary storage, with local caching for performance.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Answer

Azure Site Recovery

Answer

Azure Migrate

Question 16

What is Azure Cost Management's 'cost allocation' feature used for?

Accepted Answer

To distribute shared infrastructure costs across teams or business units for reporting. Azure Cost Management's 'cost allocation' feature allows you to assign or redistribute shared infrastructure costs (e.g., common network, management, or security services) to specific teams, departments, or business units. This is done by defining allocation rules that split costs based on percentages or custom keys, enabling accurate chargeback and showback reporting without changing how resources are billed.

Answer

To automatically reduce costs by shutting down unused resources

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To set spending limits for individual resource groups

Answer

To automatically purchase Reserved Instances based on usage patterns

Question 17

A small start-up company needs to run complex machine learning training jobs that require powerful GPU instances for only a few hours each day. The company cannot afford the high upfront capital expense of purchasing and maintaining multiple GPU servers on-premises. Instead, they spin up GPU-optimized virtual machines on Azure during training hours and delete them when the jobs finish, paying only for the compute time consumed. Which benefit of cloud computing does this scenario primarily illustrate?

Accepted Answer

Consumption-based pricing. The scenario describes the company spinning up GPU-optimized VMs only when needed and deleting them after use, paying solely for the compute time consumed. This directly illustrates consumption-based pricing (also known as pay-as-you-go), a core cloud benefit where customers pay only for the resources they actually use, avoiding large upfront capital expenditures. The ability to scale down to zero when not in use is a hallmark of this model, enabling cost efficiency for intermittent workloads.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Fault tolerance

Answer

Geographic distribution

Question 18

A company wants to pay only for the compute resources they actually use, with no upfront costs. They can scale up or down based on demand. Which cloud pricing model does this describe?

Accepted Answer

B) Pay-as-you-go. The pay-as-you-go model (also called consumption-based pricing) allows a company to pay only for the compute resources they actually consume, with no upfront costs or long-term commitments. This model provides the flexibility to scale resources up or down based on real-time demand, aligning costs directly with usage. It is the standard pricing model for most cloud services, including Azure virtual machines and App Service plans, when no reservation or spot discount is applied.

Answer

A) Reserved capacity

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C) Spot pricing

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D) Hybrid benefit

Question 19

What does 'pay-as-you-grow' mean in the context of cloud computing for a growing business?

Accepted Answer

Scaling resources incrementally as the business grows, paying proportionally with growth. B is correct because 'pay-as-you-grow' describes the ability to incrementally add cloud resources (compute, storage, networking) as demand increases, with costs scaling proportionally. This aligns with the cloud's consumption-based model, where you pay only for what you use, avoiding large upfront capital expenditures. For a growing business, this means you can start small and expand seamlessly without over-provisioning.

Answer

Paying for maximum capacity upfront to ensure future needs are met

Answer

Getting unlimited resources free until the business reaches a profitable stage

Answer

Getting discounts that increase as you purchase more cloud resources

Question 20

What is the primary benefit of high availability in cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

Ensuring services remain operational with minimal downtime. High availability (HA) in cloud computing is designed to ensure that services and applications remain operational with minimal downtime, typically targeting a specific uptime percentage (e.g., 99.99% or 'four nines'). This is achieved through redundancy, failover mechanisms, and load balancing across multiple availability zones or regions, so that if one component fails, another takes over without significant interruption. The primary benefit is business continuity and service reliability, not cost reduction or performance scaling.

Answer

Reducing the cost of compute resources

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Automatically scaling resources during peak demand

Answer

Distributing content to users geographically