Question 159 of 1,170

Deploy and Manage Azure Compute →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is availability zones. This is the correct choice because availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking, so deploying the three VMs across different zones ensures that if one entire datacenter fails, the application remains available through the other zones. In contrast, an availability set protects against hardware failures within a single datacenter by distributing VMs across fault domains, but it cannot survive a full datacenter outage. On the AZ-104 exam, this distinction is a classic trap: questions specifying “datacenter failure” always point to zones, while “rack or hardware failure” points to availability sets. A quick memory tip is to think of zones as separate buildings and sets as separate racks inside one building—when the building goes down, only zones save you.

AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question

This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of deploy and manage azure compute. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 production application runs on three Azure VMs in a region that supports availability zones. The business wants the application to remain available if one datacenter in the region fails. What should the administrator use?

Question 1easymultiple choice

Full question →

A
An availability set
Why wrong: An availability set helps protect against host and update domain failures, but it does not place VMs in different datacenters within a region. It is useful for host-level resilience, not for surviving a full zone or datacenter outage.
B
Availability zones
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within the same Azure region. If one datacenter or zone fails, the VMs in the remaining zones can continue running. This is the correct choice when the requirement is resilience against a zone-level or datacenter-level outage.
C
A managed disk snapshot
Why wrong: A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a disk used for backup or restore. It does not keep the application running during an outage and does not distribute VMs across separate failure domains. It is a recovery tool, not high availability.
D
A proximity placement group
Why wrong: A proximity placement group places resources physically close together to reduce latency. It is the opposite of what is needed for datacenter failure resilience because it does not spread VMs across independent failure boundaries.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

Availability zones

Availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying the three VMs across different zones ensures that if one datacenter fails, the application remains available because the other zones continue to operate. This directly meets the requirement for resilience against a single datacenter failure.

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.

✗
An availability set
Why it's wrong here
An availability set helps protect against host and update domain failures, but it does not place VMs in different datacenters within a region. It is useful for host-level resilience, not for surviving a full zone or datacenter outage.
✓
Availability zones
Why this is correct
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within the same Azure region. If one datacenter or zone fails, the VMs in the remaining zones can continue running. This is the correct choice when the requirement is resilience against a zone-level or datacenter-level outage.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
A managed disk snapshot
Why it's wrong here
A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a disk used for backup or restore. It does not keep the application running during an outage and does not distribute VMs across separate failure domains. It is a recovery tool, not high availability.
✗
A proximity placement group
Why it's wrong here
A proximity placement group places resources physically close together to reduce latency. It is the opposite of what is needed for datacenter failure resilience because it does not spread VMs across independent failure boundaries.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse availability sets (which protect against rack-level failures) with availability zones (which protect against datacenter-level failures), leading them to choose the wrong option when the question specifies a full datacenter failure.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, availability zones are distinct fault domains with a minimum physical separation of several miles within a region, and each zone has its own independent power grid and network spine. When deploying VMs across zones, Azure automatically distributes them into separate update and fault domains per zone, ensuring that a zonal failure does not affect VMs in other zones. In a real-world scenario, this design is critical for mission-critical applications like financial trading platforms where even minutes of downtime can result in significant revenue loss.

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

An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this AZ-104 question test?

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: Availability zones — Availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying the three VMs across different zones ensures that if one datacenter fails, the application remains available because the other zones continue to operate. This directly meets the requirement for resilience against a single datacenter failure.

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.

About these practice questions

Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →

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Same concept, more angles

3 more ways this is tested on AZ-104

These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.

Variation 1. A public web application runs on two identical VMs behind a load balancer. The region supports availability zones. The business wants the app to keep serving traffic if one datacenter in the region becomes unavailable. What should the administrator use?

medium

A.An availability set with two VMs
✓ B.Availability zones for the two VMs
C.A single virtual machine scale set instance
D.A proximity placement group

Why B: Option B is correct because deploying the two VMs in different availability zones within the same region protects against a single datacenter failure. Each availability zone is a physically separate datacenter with independent power, cooling, and networking. If one zone goes down, the load balancer automatically routes traffic to the VM in the other zone, ensuring the application continues serving traffic.

Variation 2. A line-of-business application must keep running even if one datacenter in an Azure region has an outage. Which deployment option should you choose for the VMs?

easy

A.An availability set
B.A single virtual machine with Premium SSD
✓ C.Availability zones
D.A proximity placement group

Why C: Availability zones (Option C) are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across two or more zones ensures that if one datacenter fails, the application continues running in the other zone, meeting the requirement for resilience against a single datacenter outage.

Variation 3. A business-critical application runs in a region that does not support availability zones. It uses two Azure VMs and must survive planned maintenance and a single host failure, but it does not need automatic scale-out. Which two actions should the administrator take? Select two.

hard

✓ A.Place both VMs in the same availability set
✓ B.Deploy the VMs so Azure distributes them across fault and update domains within that set
C.Deploy the VMs in separate availability zones
D.Convert the workload to a single larger VM
E.Put the VMs in a proximity placement group

Why A: Option A is correct because an availability set provides redundancy within a single region that does not support availability zones, protecting against both planned maintenance (via update domains) and host failures (via fault domains). By placing both VMs in the same availability set, Azure ensures they are distributed across multiple fault domains (up to 3) and update domains (up to 20), so a single hardware failure or planned maintenance event does not affect both VMs simultaneously.

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