A team has an approved Windows VM that already includes their application, patches, and monitoring agent. They want future VMs to start with the same configuration. What 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.
Best answer
A managed image created from the approved VM
A managed image captures the configured operating system and installed software so you can deploy new VMs with the same baseline. This is the simplest way to standardize a known-good VM configuration for repeated use. It fits the requirement because the team wants future VMs to start from the same approved setup, not rebuild the software manually each time. It is an operationally common choice for consistent VM deployment.
Distractor review
An availability set
An availability set improves resilience, but it does not capture software, settings, or installed agents.
Distractor review
A snapshot of the OS disk
A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a disk, but it is not the standard choice for reusable VM templating.
Distractor review
A larger virtual machine size
A larger size increases CPU and memory, but it does not preserve application configuration or installed software.
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
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Question 2
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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 managed image created from the approved VM — A managed image is the best choice when you want to deploy new VMs from the same configured reference system. It preserves the OS and the installed software state from the approved VM, so administrators do not need to repeat setup steps. This is different from a snapshot, which is mainly a disk recovery tool, and different from an availability set or VM size, which are not related to standardizing the software baseline. Why others are wrong: An availability set is for fault domain and update domain distribution, not image capture. A snapshot can help with recovery, but it is not the best answer for creating a reusable deployment baseline. Changing VM size improves capacity only and does not copy the approved software stack or configuration to future VMs.
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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