AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
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.
⚠ Common exam trap
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.
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 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.
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
A metric alert rule for the VM's CPU metric is the correct alerting mechanism because it continuously samples the 'Percentage CPU' performance counter from the virtual machine's Azure Monitor metrics. You define a threshold (e.g., >80% for 10 minutes), and Azure Monitor evaluates that condition on a configured frequency, generating a triggered alert when the condition is met. This rule is the trigger that invokes notifications and is the foundation of the team's requirement.
- ✓
An action group with an email receiver
Why this is correct
An action group is the Azure Monitor notification hub that contains configurable receivers, such as an email address for the operations group. When the metric alert rule fires, it references this action group and Azure Monitor sends an email to all enrolled recipients, ensuring the team is immediately informed. Without an action group, the alert would fire silently and no notification would be delivered.
- ✗
A Recovery Services vault
Why it's wrong here
A Recovery Services vault is designed for backup and disaster recovery, storing recovery points and enabling restore of VMs; it does not continuously monitor CPU utilization or host metric alert rules. While the vault can alert on backup failures, it cannot evaluate performance thresholds or email the operations group in response to CPU spikes. Therefore it does not satisfy the alerting requirement.
When this WOULD be correct
When the question asks for configuring backup or disaster recovery for Azure VMs, such as 'You need to enable daily backups of a virtual machine. Which resource must you create first?'
- ✗
A private endpoint for the virtual machine
Why it's wrong here
A private endpoint is a network interface with a private IP address from your VNet that exposes an Azure PaaS service, like a storage account or SQL database, privately; it does not generate alerts. Virtual machines do not have private endpoints attached to themselves, and this feature provides no mechanism for measuring CPU usage or sending notifications. It is a connectivity feature, not a monitoring or alerting feature.
When this WOULD be correct
A question asks: 'You need to ensure that traffic to an Azure SQL database from a virtual network does not traverse the public internet. Which component should you configure?' In that scenario, a private endpoint would be correct.
- ✗
A blob lifecycle management policy
Why it's wrong here
A blob lifecycle management policy operates on Azure Storage blobs, not on virtual machine compute resources; it automates tiering to Cool/Archive or deleting blobs based on age. It has no access to VM CPU metrics and cannot trigger email notifications or respond to performance thresholds. This option is unrelated to VM monitoring alerting.
When this WOULD be correct
An exam question asks: 'You need to automatically move blobs older than 30 days to cool tier and delete blobs older than 90 days. Which Azure feature should you configure?' In that scenario, a blob lifecycle management policy is the correct answer.
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 metric alert rule on the VM CPU metricCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
A metric alert rule for the VM's CPU metric is the correct alerting mechanism because it continuously samples the 'Percentage CPU' performance counter from the virtual machine's Azure Monitor metrics. You define a threshold (e.g., >80% for 10 minutes), and Azure Monitor evaluates that condition on a configured frequency, generating a triggered alert when the condition is met. This rule is the trigger that invokes notifications and is the foundation of the team's requirement.
✗A Recovery Services vaultWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A Recovery Services vault is used for Azure Backup and Site Recovery, not for configuring alerts based on VM performance metrics like CPU percentage.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
When the question asks for configuring backup or disaster recovery for Azure VMs, such as 'You need to enable daily backups of a virtual machine. Which resource must you create first?'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse Recovery Services vault with a monitoring or alerting component because both are associated with VM management and protection.
✗A private endpoint for the virtual machineWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A private endpoint is used to securely connect to Azure services over a private IP address, not for monitoring or alerting on VM CPU metrics. It does not help configure alerts or notifications.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A question asks: 'You need to ensure that traffic to an Azure SQL database from a virtual network does not traverse the public internet. Which component should you configure?' In that scenario, a private endpoint would be correct.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse private endpoints with monitoring endpoints or think that private connectivity is needed for alerting, but alerts use Azure Monitor's public endpoints by default.
✗A blob lifecycle management policyWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A blob lifecycle management policy manages the tiering or deletion of blob data in Azure Storage, not VM CPU alerts. It is irrelevant to monitoring VM performance metrics.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An exam question asks: 'You need to automatically move blobs older than 30 days to cool tier and delete blobs older than 90 days. Which Azure feature should you configure?' In that scenario, a blob lifecycle management policy is the correct answer.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'lifecycle' with alerting or think it applies to VM resource management, not realizing it is specific to Azure Storage blob data.
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
Alert rule
An alert rule is a set of conditions and actions that trigger a notification when a monitored metric or log reaches a predefined threshold.
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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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.