- A
A metric alert on storage capacity with an action group.
Why wrong: Capacity metrics do not indicate platform outage conditions or regional service health events.
- B
A log alert on storage diagnostic logs that watches for 503 responses.
Why wrong: This depends on continuous log collection and may miss the platform-level health signal the team wants.
- C
A Service Health alert based on the Activity log, scoped appropriately.
Service Health alerts are the right choice when you need to know about Azure platform incidents, regional issues, or service degradations that affect a resource or region. They are generated from the Activity log and do not require you to ingest operational logs continuously just to detect an outage. This makes them both efficient and appropriate for platform availability monitoring.
- D
An Azure Policy assignment that audits the storage account state.
Why wrong: Policy can report compliance, but it does not notify operators about live availability incidents.
Quick Answer
The answer is a Service Health alert based on the Activity log, scoped to the storage account or its region. This is correct because Service Health alerts are designed to detect platform-level issues like a regional outage or service degradation by consuming Azure’s own health signals, which means the operations team receives proactive notifications without needing to ingest continuous logs or set up custom metric monitoring. On the AZ-104 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of the difference between Service Health alerts, which monitor Azure’s internal health, and resource-level alerts, which monitor your own metrics or logs—a common trap is choosing a Log Analytics query or a metric alert, which would require ongoing ingestion and miss platform outages entirely. Remember the memory tip: “Service Health for Azure’s health, Activity Log for the source”—the alert is configured from the Activity Log but uses the Service Health signal type, so you avoid unnecessary data costs while staying notified of outages.
AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of monitor and maintain azure resources. 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 storage account becomes unavailable because Azure has a regional platform issue. The operations team wants a notification whenever Azure marks the resource or region unhealthy, and they want to avoid continuous log ingestion just to detect the outage. What should they configure?
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
A Service Health alert based on the Activity log, scoped appropriately.
Option C is correct because a Service Health alert, configured from the Azure Activity log, provides proactive notifications when Azure services or regions experience an outage or degradation. This alert is triggered by Azure's own health signals, eliminating the need for continuous log ingestion or custom metric monitoring to detect platform-level issues.
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.
- ✗
A metric alert on storage capacity with an action group.
Why it's wrong here
Capacity metrics do not indicate platform outage conditions or regional service health events.
- ✗
A log alert on storage diagnostic logs that watches for 503 responses.
Why it's wrong here
This depends on continuous log collection and may miss the platform-level health signal the team wants.
- ✓
A Service Health alert based on the Activity log, scoped appropriately.
Why this is correct
Service Health alerts are the right choice when you need to know about Azure platform incidents, regional issues, or service degradations that affect a resource or region. They are generated from the Activity log and do not require you to ingest operational logs continuously just to detect an outage. This makes them both efficient and appropriate for platform availability monitoring.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
An Azure Policy assignment that audits the storage account state.
Why it's wrong here
Policy can report compliance, but it does not notify operators about live availability incidents.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse application-level monitoring (e.g., log alerts on HTTP 503 errors) with Azure's own platform health signals, leading them to choose a log-based solution that requires continuous ingestion and misses the native Service Health alert capability.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Service Health alerts are based on the Azure Resource Health and Azure Service Health events that appear in the Activity log under the 'Service Health' category. These events are emitted by Azure's backend health monitoring system, which uses a combination of heartbeat probes, telemetry, and manual incident declarations to determine service availability. In a real-world scenario, configuring a Service Health alert for a storage account ensures the operations team receives an email or SMS (via an action group) the moment Azure marks the region or resource as 'unhealthy', without any custom instrumentation or log ingestion costs.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources — This question tests Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: A Service Health alert based on the Activity log, scoped appropriately. — Option C is correct because a Service Health alert, configured from the Azure Activity log, provides proactive notifications when Azure services or regions experience an outage or degradation. This alert is triggered by Azure's own health signals, eliminating the need for continuous log ingestion or custom metric monitoring to detect platform-level issues.
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 →
Same concept, more angles
1 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 storage account experiences a brief regional platform issue. The team wants an alert whenever Azure marks the resource as unavailable, even if no custom metric changes are detected. What should the administrator use?
medium- A.A metric alert on the account's transaction count.
- ✓ B.A Resource Health alert for the storage account.
- C.A diagnostic setting that sends logs only to a storage account.
- D.An Azure Policy assignment that denies writes to the storage account.
Why B: A Resource Health alert is designed to monitor the health of Azure resources and trigger notifications when Azure detects that the resource is unavailable due to platform issues, even if no custom metric thresholds are breached. This alert uses signals from the Azure Resource Health service, which tracks the current and historical health status of resources, making it the correct choice for detecting regional platform unavailability without relying on custom metrics.
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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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