Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A web app and a VM scale set both need the same Azure identity to read secrets from Key Vault. The identity must survive redeployment, and the team wants to remove it centrally without changing each resource individually. Which identity type should they use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
A system-assigned managed identity on each resource.
System-assigned identities are tied to a single resource and are removed when that resource is deleted.
B
Best answer
A user-assigned managed identity attached to both resources.
A user-assigned identity is reusable across resources and can be managed independently of any single workload.
C
Distractor review
A service principal with a client secret stored in application settings.
This introduces secret management overhead and does not meet the goal of eliminating stored credentials.
D
Distractor review
A resource lock on the Key Vault to preserve the secret access path.
A lock protects resources from management changes, but it does not provide an authentication identity.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A route table contains these entries: 10.0.0.0/8 with next hop Virtual appliance, and 10.1.1.0/24 with next hop Virtual network gateway. Which next hop will Azure use for traffic to 10.1.1.5?
Question 2
You are deploying a stateless web application on Azure virtual machines. The solution must automatically add and remove instances based on CPU demand and allow all instances to be managed as one logical group. Which Azure compute feature should you deploy?
Question 3
You are deploying a Windows Server VM for an internal app. The VM must support Secure Boot and vTPM later, its OS disk must survive host moves, and the team wants the lowest-cost managed disk tier that still behaves like a normal writable OS disk. Which two choices should you make? Select two.
Question 4
You need to deploy several identical virtual machines and ensure that the failure of a single Azure host does not affect all of them. Which feature should you use?
Question 5
You need to connect VNet-Hub and VNet-Spoke so that resources in both virtual networks can communicate privately over the Microsoft backbone. Both virtual networks are in the same region. What should you configure?
Question 6
You need to create a storage account that provides the lowest-cost redundant storage for non-critical data and only needs protection against local disk or server failure within a single datacenter. Which redundancy option should you choose?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: A user-assigned managed identity attached to both resources. — A user-assigned managed identity is designed for reuse across multiple Azure resources and for lifecycle independence from any one workload. That makes it ideal when the same identity must be shared by a web app and a VM scale set, and when you want the identity to remain available through redeployments or resource replacement. Central management is also simpler because the identity can be updated, granted permissions, or removed without touching each application configuration individually. Why others are wrong: System-assigned identities are attached to one resource only, so they do not fit a shared identity requirement. A service principal with a secret still depends on credential storage and rotation, which the scenario is trying to avoid. A resource lock has nothing to do with identity or authentication; it only controls management actions on resources. The question centers on identity portability and centralized lifecycle control, which points directly to a user-assigned managed identity.
What should I do if I get this AZ-104 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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