- A
Place the VMs in the same availability set.
Why wrong: An availability set protects against host and maintenance failures, not a full datacenter outage.
- B
Deploy the VMs across availability zones.
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within a region, improving resilience to a zone outage.
- C
Use a proximity placement group for the VMs.
Why wrong: A proximity placement group optimizes latency, but it does not provide datacenter-level fault isolation.
- D
Attach the VMs to the same Azure Load Balancer backend pool.
Why wrong: A load balancer distributes traffic, but it does not provide physical redundancy by itself.
Question 37 of 1,170
AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of deploy and manage azure compute. 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.
A production application runs on three Azure VMs in the same region. The business requires the service to stay available if one entire datacenter in the region becomes unavailable because of a power or network outage. Which configuration best meets the requirement?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Deploy the VMs across availability zones.
Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across three zones, the application can survive the failure of an entire datacenter because the other zones remain operational. This meets the requirement for high availability against a full datacenter outage.
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.
- ✗
Place the VMs in the same availability set.
Why it's wrong here
An availability set protects against host and maintenance failures, not a full datacenter outage.
When this WOULD be correct
If the requirement was to protect against hardware failures (e.g., server or rack failures) within a single datacenter, while ensuring high availability for the VMs, an availability set would be the correct choice.
- ✓
Deploy the VMs across availability zones.
Why this is correct
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within a region, improving resilience to a zone outage.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Use a proximity placement group for the VMs.
Why it's wrong here
A proximity placement group optimizes latency, but it does not provide datacenter-level fault isolation.
When this WOULD be correct
An application requires the lowest possible network latency between VMs (e.g., for high-performance computing or tightly coupled workloads) and does not need datacenter-level fault tolerance.
- ✗
Attach the VMs to the same Azure Load Balancer backend pool.
Why it's wrong here
A load balancer distributes traffic, but it does not provide physical redundancy by itself.
When this WOULD be correct
A question where the requirement is to distribute incoming traffic across multiple VMs for load balancing and high availability within a single datacenter, without needing to survive a full datacenter outage. For example: 'You need to distribute web traffic evenly across two VMs in the same region while providing health probing.'
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.
✓Deploy the VMs across availability zones.Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters within a region, improving resilience to a zone outage.
✗Place the VMs in the same availability set.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
An availability set protects against rack-level failures within a single datacenter, not against an entire datacenter outage. It does not provide resilience across multiple datacenters.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
If the requirement was to protect against hardware failures (e.g., server or rack failures) within a single datacenter, while ensuring high availability for the VMs, an availability set would be the correct choice.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse availability sets with availability zones, thinking both provide datacenter-level redundancy, or they may assume 'availability' in the name implies full datacenter fault tolerance.
✗Use a proximity placement group for the VMs.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Proximity placement groups reduce network latency between VMs but do not protect against datacenter-level failures; they can even place VMs in the same datacenter, increasing risk.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An application requires the lowest possible network latency between VMs (e.g., for high-performance computing or tightly coupled workloads) and does not need datacenter-level fault tolerance.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'proximity' with 'redundancy' or think grouping VMs close together improves availability, not realizing it actually increases co-location risk.
✗Attach the VMs to the same Azure Load Balancer backend pool.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Attaching VMs to the same Azure Load Balancer backend pool distributes traffic but does not protect against a full datacenter failure if all VMs are in the same datacenter. The requirement is for availability during a datacenter outage, which requires physical separation across zones.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A question where the requirement is to distribute incoming traffic across multiple VMs for load balancing and high availability within a single datacenter, without needing to survive a full datacenter outage. For example: 'You need to distribute web traffic evenly across two VMs in the same region while providing health probing.'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think that a load balancer inherently provides high availability by distributing traffic, but they overlook that it does not protect against the failure of an entire datacenter if all backend VMs are in that datacenter.
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 often confuse availability sets (which protect against rack-level failures within a datacenter) with availability zones (which protect against full datacenter outages), leading them to choose Option A incorrectly.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Availability Zones offer a 99.99% SLA for VMs when two or more instances are deployed across zones, compared to 99.95% for availability sets. Each zone is a unique physical location with independent power, cooling, and network infrastructure, and zone failures are isolated — a single zone outage does not affect others. In practice, you must also configure a load balancer with zone-redundant frontend IPs to ensure traffic can reach surviving VMs during a zone failure.
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.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Deploy and Manage Azure Compute — This question tests Deploy and Manage Azure Compute — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Deploy the VMs across availability zones. — Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across three zones, the application can survive the failure of an entire datacenter because the other zones remain operational. This meets the requirement for high availability against a full datacenter outage.
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 →
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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