AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✓

  Deploy the application on a virtual machine scale set.

  Why this is correct

  An Azure virtual machine scale set (VMSS) deploys a group of identical, stateless VMs behind a load balancer and can automatically scale instances in or out based on demand. It spreads instances across fault domains and update domains, so hardware failures or maintenance events affect only a subset of instances while traffic continues to be served by the healthy ones. Because the app is stateless, instances can be freely added or removed without data consistency issues.

• ✓

  Configure the deployment to use availability zones.

  Why this is correct

  Availability zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region, each with its own power, cooling, and network. Deploying your VMs across two or more zones protects against an entire datacenter failure, as traffic can be redirected to instances in another zone. This configuration yields a higher service-level agreement than single-zone or single-datacenter deployments and is a core part of a resilient architecture.

• ✗

  Use a single availability set with one VM to reduce complexity.

  Why it's wrong here

  An availability set with a single VM still has only one fault domain and update domain, leaving no redundant capacity to absorb a hardware failure or maintenance reboot. Regardless of the availability set membership, a single instance is a single point of failure, and the setup cannot scale out to handle increased load. Availability sets are designed for distributing multiple VMs; placing just one VM in them provides no protection.

  When this WOULD be correct

  For a legacy application that is not stateless and cannot be distributed, and where cost is the primary concern with no high availability or scaling requirements, deploying a single VM in an availability set might be acceptable.

• ✗

  Use a proximity placement group for the workload.

  Why it's wrong here

  A proximity placement group reduces network latency by co-locating VMs in the same Azure datacenter or within a small network distance. However, that tight co-location increases the blast radius: a failure in that shared infrastructure can take down every VM in the group simultaneously. It does not offer zone or fault-domain independence and does not support autoscaling, so it is not a suitable mechanism for resilience.

• ✗

  Deploy one larger VM with a premium SSD instead of multiple instances.

  Why it's wrong here

  Scaling up to one very large VM with premium SSD does not address availability; if that VM fails, crashes, or is rebooted for planned maintenance, the application becomes completely unavailable. Premium SSDs optimize disk performance and IOPS, not fault tolerance, and a single VM cannot maintain concurrent connections if it goes down. Distributing load across multiple independent instances is required to achieve resilience.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the question required maximizing performance for a single, non-distributed workload with strict latency requirements and no need for high availability or scalability, deploying one large VM with premium SSD would be correct.

Option-by-option analysis

Why each answer is right or wrong

Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The AZ-104 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.

Analysis generated from the official AZ-104blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”

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