AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of deploy and manage azure compute. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A development environment uses temporary test VMs that can be rebuilt at any time. The administrator wants the operating system disk to provide the lowest practical latency and does not need the disk data to survive a deallocate operation. Which OS disk option should be selected?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Ephemeral OS disk.
Ephemeral OS disks use the local VM storage (temporary disk) rather than remote managed storage, which provides the lowest possible latency because data is stored directly on the host node. Since the test VMs can be rebuilt at any time and the disk data does not need to survive a deallocate operation, the ephemeral disk is ideal—it is automatically deleted when the VM is deallocated or deleted, and it avoids the cost and performance overhead of managed disks.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Standard HDD managed disk.
Why it's wrong here
This is persistent storage, but it does not offer the lowest latency for temporary workloads.
✗
Premium SSD managed disk.
Why it's wrong here
Premium SSD is fast, but it still persists disk data after deallocation.
✓
Ephemeral OS disk.
Why this is correct
Ephemeral OS disks are intended for transient VMs and use local storage for very fast OS disk performance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Ultra Disk managed disk.
Why it's wrong here
Ultra Disk is for high-performance persistent data workloads, not the simplest fit for an OS disk here.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often choose Premium SSD (B) because they associate 'lowest latency' with premium managed disks, forgetting that ephemeral OS disks use local storage which is inherently faster and also meets the 'no persistence' requirement, while managed disks always persist data across deallocations.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Ephemeral OS disks leverage the local NVMe or SSD storage directly attached to the Azure host node, achieving sub-millisecond latency because there is no network round-trip to the storage backend. When a VM with an ephemeral OS disk is deallocated, the disk is destroyed and the OS state is lost; this behavior is enforced by the Azure fabric, which reclaims the local storage for other tenants. In real-world scenarios, this is ideal for stateless workloads like Azure Batch nodes or dev/test environments where fast boot times and low latency are critical, but it requires that the VM size supports ephemeral disks (e.g., Dsv3, Esv3 series) and that the OS image is placed in the local cache.
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.
TExam Day Tips
→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.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-104 question in full detail.
Deploy and Manage Azure Compute — This question tests Deploy and Manage Azure Compute — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Ephemeral OS disk. — Ephemeral OS disks use the local VM storage (temporary disk) rather than remote managed storage, which provides the lowest possible latency because data is stored directly on the host node. Since the test VMs can be rebuilt at any time and the disk data does not need to survive a deallocate operation, the ephemeral disk is ideal—it is automatically deleted when the VM is deallocated or deleted, and it avoids the cost and performance overhead of managed disks.
What should I do if I get this AZ-104 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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