AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse metric alerts (which require custom metric thresholds) with Resource Health alerts (which detect platform-level unavailability), leading them to choose a metric-based option like transaction count instead of the health-specific alert.
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 Resource Health alert for the storage account.
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.
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 the account's transaction count.
Why it's wrong here
A metric alert on transaction count monitors the number of API requests processed by the storage account, which is a demand-driven performance signal rather than a health indicator. During a regional platform outage, transaction count might drop to near zero, but it would also drop if clients simply stop using the account, making it impossible to distinguish an Azure-side incident from normal inactivity. Moreover, retry logic or background jobs could produce intermittent transaction counts, so the metric is neither necessary nor sufficient to detect a platform-declared unavailable state.
When this WOULD be correct
A metric alert on transaction count would be correct if the question asked for an alert when the number of transactions exceeds a threshold (e.g., to detect a sudden spike in usage) or falls below a threshold (e.g., to detect a drop in activity).
- ✓
A Resource Health alert for the storage account.
Why this is correct
Resource Health alerts are designed to notify administrators when Azure determines that a specific resource is unavailable or degraded because of a platform issue. This works even when ordinary metrics do not change in a useful way. It is the correct choice when the requirement is to detect service or infrastructure problems that Azure reports at the resource level rather than workload performance issues.
- ✗
A diagnostic setting that sends logs only to a storage account.
Why it's wrong here
A diagnostic setting that sends logs only to a storage account configures the export of resource logs and metrics to an Azure Storage destination for long-term retention or offline analysis. It does not include any alerting logic or notification action, so no one is proactively paged when the health state changes. In fact, if the platform issue affects the storage account's regional availability, the destination itself might be unreachable, causing logs to be lost. The correct approach is to pair diagnostic settings with Log Analytics and alert rules, but by itself it is insufficient.
When this WOULD be correct
This option would be correct if the question asked for a method to archive diagnostic logs for compliance or long-term retention, with no requirement for real-time alerting.
- ✗
An Azure Policy assignment that denies writes to the storage account.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Policy is a governance and compliance service that evaluates resource configurations against rules, such as allowed locations or required tags, and denies non-compliant write operations at the control plane. It does not observe runtime behavior, resource health signals, or availability state, so it cannot generate an alert when a regional platform problem degrades the storage account. Its purpose is to enforce standards, not to detect operational incidents.
When this WOULD be correct
An administrator needs to prevent any write operations to a storage account during a security incident to ensure data integrity. Azure Policy with a deny effect on write operations would be the correct solution.
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.
✓A Resource Health alert for the storage account.Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Resource Health alerts are designed to notify administrators when Azure determines that a specific resource is unavailable or degraded because of a platform issue. This works even when ordinary metrics do not change in a useful way. It is the correct choice when the requirement is to detect service or infrastructure problems that Azure reports at the resource level rather than workload performance issues.
✗A metric alert on the account's transaction count.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A metric alert on transaction count monitors performance metrics, not resource availability. It would not trigger when Azure marks the resource as unavailable due to a platform issue unless transaction count drops to zero, which is unreliable and not the intended signal.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A metric alert on transaction count would be correct if the question asked for an alert when the number of transactions exceeds a threshold (e.g., to detect a sudden spike in usage) or falls below a threshold (e.g., to detect a drop in activity).
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think that any drop in transactions indicates unavailability, but metric alerts are designed for performance thresholds, not health status. They overlook the dedicated Resource Health alert feature.
✗A diagnostic setting that sends logs only to a storage account.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A diagnostic setting sending logs to a storage account does not generate alerts; it only archives logs. The question requires an alert for resource unavailability, which Resource Health alerts provide directly.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
This option would be correct if the question asked for a method to archive diagnostic logs for compliance or long-term retention, with no requirement for real-time alerting.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse diagnostic settings with alerting capabilities, thinking that sending logs to storage enables monitoring, but it lacks the alert action needed for immediate notification.
✗An Azure Policy assignment that denies writes to the storage account.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Policy assignments enforce compliance rules on resources but do not generate alerts for availability issues. They cannot detect or notify about platform-level unavailability.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An administrator needs to prevent any write operations to a storage account during a security incident to ensure data integrity. Azure Policy with a deny effect on write operations would be the correct solution.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse policy enforcement with alerting, thinking that denying writes could somehow indicate or respond to unavailability, or they may overestimate Azure Policy's monitoring capabilities.
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?”
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Managed Identities for Azure Resources
Key term
Azure resource
An Azure resource is a manageable item available through Microsoft Azure, such as a virtual machine, database, or web app.
Key term
Metric
A metric is a quantifiable measurement used to assess the performance, health, or status of IT systems, networks, or applications.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.