Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
An application uses two Azure VMs in the same datacenter and must continue through planned maintenance and a single hardware host failure. The administrator does not need separate datacenter protection. Which option should be used?
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
Availability zones
Zones are broader than needed here because the requirement does not call for datacenter-level isolation.
B
Best answer
Availability set
An availability set is designed to spread VMs across update and fault domains within a datacenter. That reduces the chance that maintenance or a host failure takes down all instances at once. Because the scenario only requires protection from host-level and planned maintenance events, an availability set is the appropriate and cost-effective choice.
C
Distractor review
Proximity placement group
A proximity placement group improves latency, but it does not provide the redundancy needed for maintenance or host failures.
D
Distractor review
Virtual machine scale set
A scale set can help with scaling and resiliency, but it is not required for this simple two-VM availability need.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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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?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Availability set — Availability sets are used when VMs need protection from planned maintenance and failures of a single hardware host, but the workload does not require separate datacenter or zone protection. Azure distributes VMs across fault and update domains so both machines are less likely to be impacted by the same event. For a two-VM legacy workload, this is the standard resiliency feature to choose when you want simple in-datacenter protection. Why others are wrong: Availability zones are a stronger option, but they are unnecessary because the requirement does not mention zone or datacenter failure. A proximity placement group is about performance locality, not fault tolerance. A virtual machine scale set is useful when you want autoscaling or large fleets, but the question is specifically about basic availability protection for two existing VMs. Availability set is the best fit.
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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