AZ-104 Manage Azure Identities and Governance Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of manage azure identities and governance. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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.
An Azure subscription contains several resource groups. You need to ensure that users can create virtual machines only in regions approved by the security team. Existing noncompliant VMs can remain unchanged. What should you do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Assign a policy that denies resources in disallowed locations.
Azure Policy can enforce organizational standards by evaluating resources for compliance. The built-in 'Not allowed locations' policy denies the creation of resources in specified regions, ensuring users can only deploy VMs in approved regions. Since the requirement is to allow existing noncompliant VMs to remain unchanged, a deny effect policy (without a 'DeployIfNotExists' or 'Modify' effect) will only affect new deployments, leaving existing resources untouched.
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.
✗
Apply a ReadOnly lock to each resource group.
Why it's wrong here
Locks prevent changes to resources but do not restrict deployment locations.
✓
Assign a policy that denies resources in disallowed locations.
Why this is correct
This blocks creation of new VMs in unapproved regions while leaving existing deployments intact.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create an action group in Azure Monitor.
Why it's wrong here
Action groups handle notifications and automated actions for alerts, not regional deployment governance.
✗
Move all existing VMs to approved regions.
Why it's wrong here
That is unnecessary because the requirement allows existing noncompliant VMs to remain.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may confuse Azure Policy with Azure RBAC or locks, thinking that restricting permissions or locking resources will control where resources can be created, but only Azure Policy can enforce location-based restrictions at deployment time.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Policy uses a JSON-based policy definition with an 'if/then' condition; for the 'Not allowed locations' policy, the 'if' condition checks the resource location against a list of disallowed regions, and the 'then' action is 'deny', which blocks the deployment at the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) API level before any resource is created. This policy can be assigned at the subscription or management group scope, and it applies to all resource groups within that scope, ensuring consistent enforcement. A subtle behavior is that the policy evaluates at deployment time, so existing resources are not affected unless a remediation task is explicitly triggered.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-104 question in full detail.
Manage Azure Identities and Governance — This question tests Manage Azure Identities and Governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Assign a policy that denies resources in disallowed locations. — Azure Policy can enforce organizational standards by evaluating resources for compliance. The built-in 'Not allowed locations' policy denies the creation of resources in specified regions, ensuring users can only deploy VMs in approved regions. Since the requirement is to allow existing noncompliant VMs to remain unchanged, a deny effect policy (without a 'DeployIfNotExists' or 'Modify' effect) will only affect new deployments, leaving existing resources untouched.
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.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
This AZ-104 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-104 exam.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.