Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company hosts a stateless web application behind a load balancer. Traffic increases during the day and drops at night. The team wants Azure to automatically add or remove identical VM instances based on demand. What should the administrator deploy?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
A single large virtual machine
A single VM can be resized, but it cannot automatically add more identical instances to handle changing traffic. It also creates a larger single point of failure. This does not meet the requirement for elastic scale-out and scale-in behavior.
B
Best answer
A virtual machine scale set
A virtual machine scale set is designed for deploying and managing multiple identical VMs as a group. It supports autoscaling rules so Azure can add or remove instances based on metrics such as CPU usage or scheduled demand. This is the best fit for a stateless web workload with changing traffic.
C
Distractor review
An availability set
An availability set improves VM placement for availability, but it does not automatically scale the number of instances. It helps with resilience, not elastic capacity management. You would still need to add or remove VMs manually.
D
Distractor review
A managed image
A managed image is used as a source for creating new VMs. It does not by itself provide autoscaling, traffic-based instance management, or a runtime platform for handling web traffic. It is part of the deployment process, not the scaling solution.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A route table contains these entries: 10.0.0.0/8 with next hop Virtual appliance, and 10.1.1.0/24 with next hop Virtual network gateway. Which next hop will Azure use for traffic to 10.1.1.5?
Question 2
You are deploying a stateless web application on Azure virtual machines. The solution must automatically add and remove instances based on CPU demand and allow all instances to be managed as one logical group. Which Azure compute feature should you deploy?
Question 3
You are deploying a Windows Server VM for an internal app. The VM must support Secure Boot and vTPM later, its OS disk must survive host moves, and the team wants the lowest-cost managed disk tier that still behaves like a normal writable OS disk. Which two choices should you make? Select two.
Question 4
You need to deploy several identical virtual machines and ensure that the failure of a single Azure host does not affect all of them. Which feature should you use?
Question 5
You need to connect VNet-Hub and VNet-Spoke so that resources in both virtual networks can communicate privately over the Microsoft backbone. Both virtual networks are in the same region. What should you configure?
Question 6
You need to create a storage account that provides the lowest-cost redundant storage for non-critical data and only needs protection against local disk or server failure within a single datacenter. Which redundancy option should you choose?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: A virtual machine scale set — A virtual machine scale set is the right choice because it lets you manage a set of identical VMs and automatically scale the instance count based on demand. This is ideal for stateless workloads behind a load balancer, where each instance can serve any request. It provides both elasticity and easier operational management than standalone VMs. Why others are wrong: A single VM cannot scale out automatically. An availability set is about resilience, not autoscaling. A managed image helps you create VMs consistently, but it does not run the workload or manage capacity. The core requirement is automatic instance expansion and contraction, which VM scale sets provide.
What should I do if I get this AZ-104 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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