AZ-104 Manage Azure Identities and Governance Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of manage azure identities and governance. 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 system-assigned managed identity is attached to an Azure VM to call Key Vault. The VM is frequently reimaged and sometimes redeployed to a different name during scale events, but the application must keep the same identity and secretless access. What should the administrator use instead?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
A user-assigned managed identity associated with the workload.
A user-assigned managed identity is decoupled from the VM lifecycle, so it persists independently when VMs are reimaged or redeployed with different names. This allows the application to retain the same identity and secretless access to Key Vault without requiring manual reconfiguration or credential rotation.
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 system-assigned managed identity on each newly deployed VM.
Why it's wrong here
This identity is tied to a specific VM lifecycle and would change when the VM is replaced.
✓
A user-assigned managed identity associated with the workload.
Why this is correct
A user-assigned identity remains stable across reimages and redeployments and can be attached to new VMs as needed.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
A shared storage account key placed in the VM custom script.
Why it's wrong here
This introduces credential exposure and does not meet the requirement for secretless access.
✗
A policy exemption for the Key Vault access policy.
Why it's wrong here
Policy exemptions do not provide authentication, and Key Vault access still requires a valid identity.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates assume system-assigned identities are reusable across VM redeployments, but they are instance-scoped and destroyed with the VM, whereas user-assigned identities are persistent and can be reassigned to any resource.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
User-assigned managed identities are Azure AD service principals created as standalone resources, independent of any VM. They are assigned to VMs via the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) endpoint, which the application can use to obtain tokens for Key Vault without storing credentials. When a VM is reimaged or redeployed, the user-assigned identity remains available because it is not deleted with the VM, and the new VM simply needs the same identity assigned to it.
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.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-104 question in full detail.
Manage Azure Identities and Governance — This question tests Manage Azure Identities and Governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: A user-assigned managed identity associated with the workload. — A user-assigned managed identity is decoupled from the VM lifecycle, so it persists independently when VMs are reimaged or redeployed with different names. This allows the application to retain the same identity and secretless access to Key Vault without requiring manual reconfiguration or credential rotation.
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.
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Question Discussion
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