AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of monitor and maintain azure resources. 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 team needs an alert that emails the operations group whenever a VM's average CPU percentage stays above 85% for 10 minutes. Which two Azure Monitor components must you configure? Select two.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
A metric alert rule on the VM CPU metric
A metric alert rule on the VM CPU metric is required because it continuously monitors the 'Percentage CPU' metric and triggers when the average value exceeds 85% for a duration of 10 minutes. This rule evaluates the condition using the aggregation type 'Average' and the window size set to PT10M (ISO 8601 format). Without this rule, no alert condition exists to detect the threshold breach.
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 rule on the VM CPU metric
Why this is correct
This defines the threshold condition that Azure Monitor evaluates against the VM's CPU metric.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
An action group with an email receiver
Why this is correct
This delivers the notification to the operations team when the alert rule fires.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
A Recovery Services vault
Why it's wrong here
Recovery Services vaults are used for backup and restore, not for metric alert notifications.
✗
A private endpoint for the virtual machine
Why it's wrong here
Private endpoints provide private access to PaaS services, not alerting for VM CPU usage.
✗
A blob lifecycle management policy
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle policies manage blob tiering and deletion, which is unrelated to VM monitoring alerts.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often forget that an action group (with email, SMS, or webhook receivers) is a separate, required component that must be linked to the metric alert rule to actually send the notification; without it, the alert rule fires but no one gets emailed.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Azure Monitor metric alerts use a time-series database to store metric values and evaluate them against a threshold using a sliding window. The 'Average' aggregation over 10 minutes means the alert engine samples the CPU metric every 1 minute (default granularity) and computes the mean of the last 10 data points; if that mean exceeds 85%, the alert fires. In a real-world scenario, if the VM runs a batch job that spikes CPU to 90% for 9 minutes and then drops, the alert will not trigger because the 10-minute average window includes the drop, preventing false positives.
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.
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 metric alert rule on the VM CPU metric — A metric alert rule on the VM CPU metric is required because it continuously monitors the 'Percentage CPU' metric and triggers when the average value exceeds 85% for a duration of 10 minutes. This rule evaluates the condition using the aggregation type 'Average' and the window size set to PT10M (ISO 8601 format). Without this rule, no alert condition exists to detect the threshold breach.
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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