AZ-104 Implement and Manage Storage Practice Question
A company stores application log files in a general-purpose v2 storage account named stlogprodeus. Compliance requires that logs be kept for 180 days, but logs older than 30 days are almost never accessed. The security team wants to minimize storage costs without changing application code or blocking reads. Which action should you take?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that retaining data for a compliance period requires the Archive tier, when Archive blobs are offline and would break routine reads without rehydration.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a lifecycle management rule that moves blobs to the Cool tier after 30 days and keeps them in Cool until they are deleted at 180 days.
Lifecycle management policies can transition blobs between access tiers based on age and delete them at the end of a retention window. Moving logs to Cool after 30 days lowers cost for infrequently accessed data, while keeping them until 180 days satisfies compliance. Because the policy runs server-side, no application changes are required and reads remain immediately available.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a lifecycle management rule that moves blobs to the Cool tier after 30 days and keeps them in Cool until they are deleted at 180 days.
Why this is correct
Moving blobs to Cool after 30 days reduces storage cost for rarely accessed data while keeping them immediately readable, and deleting at 180 days satisfies the compliance retention requirement. No application change is needed because lifecycle policies operate at the storage account level. This meets the cost goal without introducing the rehydration delays that Archive would cause.
- ✗
Enable soft delete for blobs with a 180-day retention period and enable change feed to track modifications.
Why it's wrong here
Soft delete protects against accidental or malicious deletion by retaining deleted blobs for a period, but it does not move data to a cheaper tier and therefore does not reduce storage cost. Change feed records create and modify events for processing, which is unrelated to tiering or retention. This configuration leaves all logs in the Hot tier for their entire lifetime, so it fails the cost objective.
- ✗
Create a lifecycle management rule that moves blobs to the Cool tier after 30 days and to the Archive tier after 180 days, then deletes them after 365 days.
Why it's wrong here
This rule moves data to Archive at 180 days, but Archive blobs are offline and cannot be read without rehydration, which would break compliance reads and add latency. It also deletes after 365 days rather than meeting the stated 180-day retention. The scenario only requires moving cold data to a cheaper online tier, so the Cool transition is the appropriate part, not the Archive transition.
- ✗
Configure a blob index tag on each log file and enable a lifecycle rule that deletes blobs with that tag after 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
Blob index tags can drive lifecycle rules, but deleting after 30 days violates the 180-day retention requirement and would destroy data that compliance still needs. Tagging every log file also requires application or automation changes, which the scenario explicitly wants to avoid. This approach addresses neither the cost optimization for cold data nor the retention obligation.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Storage Accounts
Key term
Policy
A policy is a set of rules or guidelines that defines how an organization manages, secures, and operates its IT systems and services.
Key term
Storage account
A cloud storage account is a container that holds a set of cloud storage services and their data, providing a unique namespace and access policies for storing and managing unstructured data.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
This AZ-104 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-104 exam.