AZ-104 Implement and Manage Storage Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of implement and manage storage. 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 team stores application logs in an Azure Storage account. The logs must remain available if an entire Azure availability zone in the primary region has an outage, but the team does not require a secondary region copy. Which redundancy option should you choose?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Why wrong: LRS keeps three copies in one datacenter or storage stamp, so it does not protect against a zone-level outage.
B
ZRS
ZRS stores data across multiple availability zones in the primary region. That provides resilience if one zone becomes unavailable, while staying within the same region.
C
GRS
Why wrong: GRS adds replication to a paired secondary region, which is more than the requirement calls for.
D
RA-GRS
Why wrong: RA-GRS also includes a readable secondary region replica, which is unnecessary when only zone failure protection is required.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
ZRS
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates data across three Azure availability zones within the primary region, ensuring durability even if an entire zone fails. Since the requirement explicitly states no secondary region copy is needed, ZRS is the correct choice because it provides intra-region zone-level resilience without cross-region replication.
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.
✗
LRS
Why it's wrong here
LRS keeps three copies in one datacenter or storage stamp, so it does not protect against a zone-level outage.
✓
ZRS
Why this is correct
ZRS stores data across multiple availability zones in the primary region. That provides resilience if one zone becomes unavailable, while staying within the same region.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
GRS
Why it's wrong here
GRS adds replication to a paired secondary region, which is more than the requirement calls for.
✗
RA-GRS
Why it's wrong here
RA-GRS also includes a readable secondary region replica, which is unnecessary when only zone failure protection is required.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse ZRS with LRS, assuming LRS provides zone-level redundancy, but LRS only protects against server rack failures within a single data center, not an entire availability zone outage.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
ZRS uses synchronous replication across three Azure availability zones within the same region, each zone being one or more distinct data centers with independent power, cooling, and networking. This provides a 99.9999999999% (12 9's) durability for objects, and the replication is transparent to applications—they simply connect to the storage account endpoint. In a real-world scenario, if an entire zone in East US 2 fails, ZRS ensures the data remains accessible from the other two zones without any manual failover or configuration changes.
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.
Implement and Manage Storage — This question tests Implement and Manage Storage — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: ZRS — Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates data across three Azure availability zones within the primary region, ensuring durability even if an entire zone fails. Since the requirement explicitly states no secondary region copy is needed, ZRS is the correct choice because it provides intra-region zone-level resilience without cross-region replication.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
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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