AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✓

  Resize the VM to a larger size

  Why this is correct

  Resizing the VM changes the allocated compute resources while keeping the same operating system disk and data disks. This is the usual way to give an existing VM more CPU and memory without rebuilding the server. In many cases, you only need to stop the VM briefly, choose a larger size, and start it again.

• ✗

  Reimage the VM

  Why it's wrong here

  Reimaging a VM resets the OS disk to a clean, predefined image, which wipes installed applications, custom configurations, and user data stored on the operating system disk. While this restores the system to a baseline state, it does not alter the underlying VM size or change the allotted vCPUs and memory. The hardware capacity remains identical after reimaging; to increase CPU and memory you must choose a different VM size, so reimaging is not a valid solution.

  When this WOULD be correct

  When a VM is corrupted or compromised and needs to be restored to a clean baseline state, and the question specifies that reinstalling applications is acceptable or the OS disk is not required to be preserved.

• ✗

  Move the VM into a different availability zone

  Why it's wrong here

  Moving a VM to a different availability zone changes its physical placement for fault tolerance and high availability, but it does not modify the VM's hardware resources. Availability zones are a resilience construct, not a compute scaling option, and the VM size stays exactly the same after relocation. Even if you successfully move it, the CPU and memory remain constrained by the current size, so this action cannot address the need for more processing power.

  When this WOULD be correct

  When the question asks to improve application resilience by distributing VMs across physically separate datacenters within a region, moving to a different availability zone would be correct.

• ✗

  Create a new storage account

  Why it's wrong here

  Creating a new storage account provisions a separate Azure Storage service used for blobs, files, queues, or tables, but it does not interact with the virtual machine's compute allocation. The VM's CPU and RAM are determined solely by its hardware tier (VM size), not by any storage account residency. You would still need to resize the VM itself to gain more processing capacity, making this option irrelevant to the stated performance need.

  When this WOULD be correct

  This option would be correct if the question asked: 'An application on an Azure VM is experiencing storage performance issues due to throttling. The administrator wants to increase throughput limits without changing the VM size. What should be done?'

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.

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?”

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