The answer is to deploy the VMs across availability zones. This configuration is correct because availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking, so if one entire datacenter suffers an outage, the other zones remain operational and your VMs stay available. On the AZ-104 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of high-availability architecture versus fault domains or scale sets, which protect against rack-level failures but not a full datacenter collapse. A common trap is choosing an availability set, which only spreads VMs across fault domains within a single datacenter and cannot survive a datacenter-wide outage. To remember this, think of zones as “zones of isolation”—each zone is its own datacenter, so three zones mean three independent datacenters, giving you true datacenter-level redundancy.
AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of deploy and manage azure compute. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 the same region. The business requires the service to stay available if one entire datacenter in the region becomes unavailable because of a power or network outage. Which configuration best meets the requirement?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Deploy the VMs across availability zones.
Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across three zones, the application can survive the failure of an entire datacenter because the other zones remain operational. This meets the requirement for high availability against a full datacenter outage.
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.
✗
Place the VMs in the same availability set.
Why it's wrong here
An availability set protects against host and maintenance failures, not a full datacenter outage.
✓
Deploy the VMs across availability zones.
Why this is correct
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within a region, improving resilience to a zone outage.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a proximity placement group for the VMs.
Why it's wrong here
A proximity placement group optimizes latency, but it does not provide datacenter-level fault isolation.
✗
Attach the VMs to the same Azure Load Balancer backend pool.
Why it's wrong here
A load balancer distributes traffic, but it does not provide physical redundancy by itself.
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 within a datacenter) with availability zones (which protect against full datacenter outages), leading them to choose Option A incorrectly.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Availability Zones offer a 99.99% SLA for VMs when two or more instances are deployed across zones, compared to 99.95% for availability sets. Each zone is a unique physical location with independent power, cooling, and network infrastructure, and zone failures are isolated — a single zone outage does not affect others. In practice, you must also configure a load balancer with zone-redundant frontend IPs to ensure traffic can reach surviving VMs during a zone failure.
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.
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: Deploy the VMs across availability zones. — Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across three zones, the application can survive the failure of an entire datacenter because the other zones remain operational. This meets the requirement for high availability against a full datacenter outage.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
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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 company is deploying two Linux application VMs in Azure for a production workload. The region supports availability zones, and the business requires the workload to stay online if an entire datacenter in the region becomes unavailable. Which deployment choice best meets this requirement?
medium
A.Place both VMs in the same availability set so Azure separates them across update domains.
✓ B.Deploy the VMs across two availability zones in the same region.
C.Use a single larger VM size with premium SSD storage for better uptime.
D.Deploy the VMs in the same resource group and enable auto-shutdown.
Why B: Availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying the two Linux VMs across two different zones ensures that if an entire datacenter fails, the VM in the other zone remains online, meeting the requirement for resilience against a full datacenter outage.
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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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.
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