AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services — Timed 40 Questions

Question 1

A company is planning to migrate its on-premises applications to Azure. They have a mix of monolithic and microservices-based applications. Which Azure compute service should they choose for a microservices architecture that requires independent scaling and deployment of components?

Accepted Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the correct choice because it provides a managed Kubernetes orchestration platform designed specifically for microservices architectures. AKS enables independent scaling, deployment, and management of containerized components, which aligns with the requirement for decoupled services that can be updated or scaled individually without affecting the entire application.

Answer

Azure Functions

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Azure App Service

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Azure Virtual Machines

Question 2

A solutions architect is designing a storage solution for a large media company. The company needs to store video files that are accessed infrequently but must be retained for several years for compliance. Which two Azure storage options meet these requirements? (Select two.)

Accepted Answer

Blob Storage - Cool tier. Blob Storage Cool tier is correct because it is designed for data that is accessed infrequently but needs to be stored for at least 30 days, offering lower storage costs than the Hot tier while maintaining low-latency access. Blob Storage Archive tier is correct because it is the lowest-cost storage option for data that is rarely accessed and has a flexible retrieval time (hours), making it ideal for long-term compliance retention of video files.

Answer

Blob Storage - Hot tier

Answer

Azure Files - Premium tier

Question 3

A developer is building a serverless application that requires integration with an on-premises SQL Server database for real-time data processing. The on-premises network is connected to Azure via a site-to-site VPN. Which Azure service would allow the function to securely access the on-premises database without exposing it to the public internet?

Accepted Answer

Azure Functions in Premium plan with VNet integration. Option B is correct because Azure Functions in the Premium plan supports VNet integration, allowing the function to securely access resources in a connected on-premises network via a site-to-site VPN without exposing the database to the public internet. The Consumption plan lacks VNet integration, and Azure SQL Database is a PaaS service, not a compute service for running serverless code.

Answer

Azure Functions in Consumption plan

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Azure SQL Database

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Hybrid Connections

Question 4

A company is designing a multi-tier application on Azure. The web tier needs to scale out based on CPU usage, while the database tier requires high-performance storage for transactional data. Which combination of Azure services should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database. Azure App Service provides built-in autoscaling based on metrics like CPU usage, making it ideal for the web tier that needs to scale out. Azure SQL Database offers high-performance, low-latency storage for transactional data with features like automatic indexing and in-memory OLTP, meeting the database tier's requirements.

Answer

Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB

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Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets and Azure Files

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Azure Kubernetes Service and Blob Storage

Question 5

A company is deploying a mission-critical application that must remain available even if a physical Azure datacenter within a region fails. The application will run on multiple virtual machines. Which Azure feature should they use to protect against this specific failure scenario?

Accepted Answer

Availability Zones. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across multiple zones, the application remains available even if one entire datacenter fails. This directly addresses the requirement for protection against a physical datacenter failure within a region.

Answer

Availability Sets

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Virtual Machine Scale Sets

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Azure Load Balancer

Question 6

A company deploys a web application on Azure App Service. During a marketing campaign, they expect traffic to double. The app uses a Standard tier App Service plan. They want to ensure that the additional load is handled without performance degradation while keeping costs minimal. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Scale out the App Service plan by increasing the instance count.. Scaling out (increasing instance count) for the Standard tier App Service plan allows the application to handle the doubled traffic by distributing requests across multiple instances, ensuring no performance degradation. This approach is cost-minimal because the Standard tier supports manual scale-out without requiring a tier upgrade, and you only pay for the additional instances while they are needed.

Answer

Scale up the App Service plan to a Premium tier for more resources.

Answer

Enable autoscale on the existing plan to let Azure handle scaling automatically.

Answer

Deploy Azure CDN to cache static content.

Question 7

A company wants to deploy a custom Linux-based application in Azure. They need full control over the operating system, including installing custom software and configuration. Which Azure compute service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Virtual Machines. Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) provide full control over the operating system, allowing you to install custom software, configure the kernel, and manage system-level settings. This is the correct choice for a custom Linux-based application that requires complete OS-level access, unlike platform-as-a-service offerings that abstract away the underlying infrastructure.

Answer

Azure App Service

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Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure Functions

Question 8

A company uses Azure and wants to organize all their virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts into logical containers for management and billing purposes. Which Azure component should they use to group these resources?

Accepted Answer

Resource Group. Resource Groups are logical containers in Azure that allow you to group related resources such as virtual machines, databases, and storage accounts for unified management, monitoring, and billing. By placing resources in the same resource group, you can apply lifecycle operations (e.g., delete, tag) and cost tracking across all members. This directly matches the requirement to organize resources for management and billing purposes.

Answer

Azure Policy

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Management Group

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Azure Subscription

Question 9

Which Azure region feature provides fault tolerance by isolating failures within a single region? It consists of physically separate datacenters with independent power, cooling, and networking.

Accepted Answer

Availability Zones. B is correct because Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. This isolation ensures that if one zone fails, the others remain operational, providing fault tolerance within the same region. Availability Zones protect applications from datacenter-level failures, not just server or rack failures.

Answer

Availability Sets

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Region Pairs

Answer

Fault Domains

Question 10

A healthcare organization stores patient records in Azure Blob Storage. They require that data remains available even if an entire Azure datacenter fails, and they also need to ensure data is replicated within the same region for low latency. Which storage redundancy option should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS). Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates data across three Azure availability zones within the same region, ensuring data remains available even if an entire datacenter (one zone) fails. This meets both the availability requirement and the low-latency requirement because replication stays within the region, avoiding cross-region latency.

Answer

Locally Redundant Storage (LRS)

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Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)

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Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS)

Question 11

A development team wants to deploy a microservices-based application using containers. They want to orchestrate the containers with automatic scaling and rolling updates, but they want to avoid managing the underlying infrastructure such as virtual machines. Which Azure compute service meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the correct choice because it provides a managed Kubernetes orchestration platform that handles container deployment, automatic scaling, and rolling updates while abstracting away the underlying virtual machine infrastructure. AKS manages the control plane for you, so you only need to manage the agent nodes (or use virtual nodes for serverless containers), meeting the requirement to avoid managing VMs directly.

Answer

Azure Virtual Machines

Answer

Azure Container Instances

Answer

Azure App Service

Question 12

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

Answer

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

Answer

Azure Database for SQL

Question 13

A company wants to run a containerized application in Azure without managing the underlying virtual machines. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

B) Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed container orchestration service that abstracts the underlying virtual machines, allowing you to deploy, scale, and manage containerized applications without having to manage the host infrastructure. AKS handles provisioning, upgrading, and patching of the cluster nodes, so you only interact with the control plane and your workloads.

Answer

A) Azure Virtual Machines

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C) Azure App Service

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D) Azure Functions

Question 14

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for a multi-tier application hosted in Azure. They need to ensure that if an entire Azure region becomes unavailable, the application can fail over to another region. The application uses Azure SQL Database. Which Azure feature should they use to replicate the database across regions?

Accepted Answer

B) Azure SQL Database automatic failover groups. Azure SQL Database automatic failover groups (Option B) are the correct choice because they provide automated, orchestrated failover of a group of databases across regions, ensuring the entire multi-tier application can fail over when an Azure region becomes unavailable. Unlike geo-replication, which only replicates data, failover groups manage the entire logical server and its databases, including updating the connection string endpoint to the secondary region, which is essential for application continuity.

Answer

A) Azure SQL Database geo-replication

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C) Azure Traffic Manager

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D) Azure Site Recovery

Question 15

A company has a virtual machine running a legacy application that needs high-performance, low-latency storage for transactional data. They need to attach a storage solution that provides the highest IOPS and throughput. Which Azure managed disk type should they choose?

Accepted Answer

D) Ultra Disk. Ultra Disk is the correct choice because it offers the highest IOPS and throughput of any Azure managed disk, with sub-millisecond latency, making it ideal for high-performance, low-latency transactional workloads. It supports up to 160,000 IOPS and 2,000 MB/s throughput per disk, and allows independent scaling of IOPS and throughput without requiring a disk swap.

Answer

A) Standard HDD

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B) Standard SSD

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C) Premium SSD

Question 16

A company needs to store large amounts of unstructured data, such as images and videos, for a web application. They need to access data from anywhere via HTTP/HTTPS. Which Azure storage service should they use?

Accepted Answer

A) Azure Blob Storage. Azure Blob Storage is designed for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as images and videos, and provides REST-based access over HTTP/HTTPS from anywhere. It supports scalable object storage with global accessibility, making it ideal for web application content delivery.

Answer

B) Azure File Storage

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C) Azure Queue Storage

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D) Azure Table Storage

Question 17

A company deploys virtual machines in Azure. They want to ensure that the VMs are distributed across multiple fault domains and update domains within an Azure datacenter to protect against hardware failures and maintenance. Which Azure construct should they use?

Accepted Answer

A) Availability Set. An Availability Set is the correct Azure construct because it logically groups VMs to protect against both hardware failures (via fault domains) and planned maintenance (via update domains) within a single Azure datacenter. Fault domains distribute VMs across separate racks with independent power, cooling, and network, while update domains ensure VMs in different groups are not rebooted simultaneously during Azure host updates. This directly matches the requirement to isolate VMs across multiple fault and update domains within a datacenter.

Answer

B) Availability Zone

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C) Region Pair

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D) Resource Group

Question 18

A company deploys a multi-tier application using Azure virtual machines. The web tier VMs must be evenly distributed across two distinct data centers within an Azure region to avoid a single point of failure from an infrastructure outage. Which Azure construct should they use to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Availability zone. Availability zones are physically separate data centers within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying the web tier VMs across two distinct zones, the application avoids a single point of failure from an infrastructure outage at the data center level, meeting the requirement for high availability across distinct data centers.

Answer

Availability set

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Proximity placement group

Answer

Azure Load Balancer

Question 19

A company wants to migrate an on-premises application to Azure. The application requires consistently high disk throughput for database files. They plan to use Azure virtual machines with managed disks. Which disk type should they choose to get the highest possible IOPS and throughput at a premium cost?

Accepted Answer

Ultra Disk. Ultra Disk (Option C) is correct because it provides the highest IOPS and throughput of any Azure managed disk type, with sub-millisecond latency, making it ideal for I/O-intensive workloads like database files. It is designed for premium cost scenarios where maximum performance is required, offering configurable IOPS and throughput independent of disk size.

Answer

Standard SSD

Answer

Premium SSD v2

Answer

Standard HDD

Question 20

A company plans to run a large-scale batch processing job on Azure that runs for 10 hours every night. The job is fault-tolerant and can be interrupted. They want to minimize cost as much as possible. Which Azure virtual machine pricing option should they use?

Accepted Answer

Spot VMs. Spot VMs allow you to use unused Azure compute capacity at a significant discount (up to 90% compared to pay-as-you-go). Because the batch job is fault-tolerant and can be interrupted, it is an ideal workload for Spot VMs, which can be evicted when Azure needs the capacity back. This minimizes cost while meeting the job's requirements.

Answer

Reserved Instances

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Pay-as-you-go

Answer

Dedicated Hosts