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.
Exhibit
Current alert rule:
Name: StorageTxnAlert
Target: storage account stprod001
Signal type: Metric
Metric: Transactions
Condition: Greater than 100 in 5 minutes
Action group: SecOps
Change request: notify the team when anyone edits the storage account network rules or disables public access.
Based on the exhibit, the security team wants an alert whenever someone changes the configuration of a storage account, such as disabling public network access. The current rule is a metric alert on transaction count. What should you use instead?
Exhibit
Current alert rule:
Name: StorageTxnAlert
Target: storage account stprod001
Signal type: Metric
Metric: Transactions
Condition: Greater than 100 in 5 minutes
Action group: SecOps
Change request: notify the team when anyone edits the storage account network rules or disables public access.
A
Keep the metric alert and lower the threshold to 10 transactions.
Why wrong: Transaction volume does not tell you whether someone changed a setting. Lowering the threshold would still watch traffic, not configuration changes.
B
Create a service health alert because storage account settings affect platform status.
Why wrong: Service health alerts are for Azure platform incidents, not changes made by administrators to a specific resource configuration.
C
Use a Log Analytics query alert against VM guest logs to detect network-rule changes.
Why wrong: VM guest logs are unrelated to storage account management actions. Even if logs exist, they do not reliably capture control-plane edits on the storage account.
D
Create an activity log alert for write operations on the storage account resource.
Configuration changes to a storage account are control-plane actions and appear in the Azure Activity log. An activity log alert on write operations is the right monitoring approach because it detects management changes, not traffic patterns.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create an activity log alert for write operations on the storage account resource.
Activity log alerts are designed to monitor Azure resource-level operations, such as write actions that modify storage account configurations. Option D is correct because it creates an alert specifically for write operations on the storage account resource, which captures events like disabling public network access. This is the appropriate method for detecting configuration changes, unlike metric alerts which track performance data.
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.
✗
Keep the metric alert and lower the threshold to 10 transactions.
Why it's wrong here
Transaction volume does not tell you whether someone changed a setting. Lowering the threshold would still watch traffic, not configuration changes.
When this WOULD be correct
This option would be correct if the question asked for a metric alert to detect a sudden drop in storage account transactions (e.g., due to a network outage) and the threshold needed adjustment to trigger earlier.
✗
Create a service health alert because storage account settings affect platform status.
Why it's wrong here
Service health alerts are for Azure platform incidents, not changes made by administrators to a specific resource configuration.
When this WOULD be correct
A service health alert would be correct if the question asked to be notified when Azure declares an outage or planned maintenance affecting storage accounts, or when a region-wide issue impacts storage services. For example: 'Create an alert to notify the team if Azure reports a service issue with storage accounts in the East US region.'
✗
Use a Log Analytics query alert against VM guest logs to detect network-rule changes.
Why it's wrong here
VM guest logs are unrelated to storage account management actions. Even if logs exist, they do not reliably capture control-plane edits on the storage account.
When this WOULD be correct
This option would be correct if the question were: 'You need to alert when a specific application running on a VM changes its network configuration, such as disabling a firewall rule. What should you use?' In that case, VM guest logs would capture the application-level changes.
✓
Create an activity log alert for write operations on the storage account resource.
Why this is correct
Configuration changes to a storage account are control-plane actions and appear in the Azure Activity log. An activity log alert on write operations is the right monitoring approach because it detects management changes, not traffic patterns.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised 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.
✓Create an activity log alert for write operations on the storage account resource.Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Configuration changes to a storage account are control-plane actions and appear in the Azure Activity log. An activity log alert on write operations is the right monitoring approach because it detects management changes, not traffic patterns.
✗Keep the metric alert and lower the threshold to 10 transactions.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Lowering the threshold to 10 transactions does not change the metric type; it still monitors transaction count, not configuration changes like disabling public network access. Activity log alerts are required for resource configuration changes.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
This option would be correct if the question asked for a metric alert to detect a sudden drop in storage account transactions (e.g., due to a network outage) and the threshold needed adjustment to trigger earlier.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think reducing the threshold makes the alert more sensitive to any change, not realizing that metric alerts only track performance metrics, not configuration operations.
✗Create a service health alert because storage account settings affect platform status.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Service health alerts monitor issues with Azure services themselves, not configuration changes to individual resources like storage accounts. The question asks for alerts on storage account configuration changes, which are tracked via the Azure activity log, not service health.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A service health alert would be correct if the question asked to be notified when Azure declares an outage or planned maintenance affecting storage accounts, or when a region-wide issue impacts storage services. For example: 'Create an alert to notify the team if Azure reports a service issue with storage accounts in the East US region.'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think that changes to storage account settings (like disabling public network access) could affect the platform's health status, or they confuse service health alerts with resource-level monitoring. The term 'service health' sounds like it covers all health-related alerts.
✗Use a Log Analytics query alert against VM guest logs to detect network-rule changes.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
The question asks about detecting configuration changes to a storage account, not about VM guest OS logs. Log Analytics query alerts against VM guest logs would only capture events within the VM, not Azure resource-level changes like storage account network rule modifications.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
This option would be correct if the question were: 'You need to alert when a specific application running on a VM changes its network configuration, such as disabling a firewall rule. What should you use?' In that case, VM guest logs would capture the application-level changes.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse Azure resource-level changes (tracked via Activity Log) with guest OS-level changes (tracked via Log Analytics), or think that all monitoring requires Log Analytics queries.
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?”
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse metric alerts (which monitor performance counters like transaction count) with activity log alerts (which monitor resource management operations), leading them to choose options that track the wrong type of data.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Activity log alerts use Azure Resource Manager telemetry to capture control-plane operations, such as PUT, POST, or DELETE requests on a resource. Each write operation generates an event in the activity log with details like the caller, timestamp, and changed properties, allowing precise alerting on specific actions like disabling public network access. This approach is distinct from data-plane monitoring (e.g., metrics or logs) and is essential for compliance and security scenarios where configuration drift must be detected in real time.
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: Create an activity log alert for write operations on the storage account resource. — Activity log alerts are designed to monitor Azure resource-level operations, such as write actions that modify storage account configurations. Option D is correct because it creates an alert specifically for write operations on the storage account resource, which captures events like disabling public network access. This is the appropriate method for detecting configuration changes, unlike metric alerts which track performance data.
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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