AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
Exhibit
Business requirement: - Application must survive a datacenter-level outage - Azure region supports availability zones - The workload can run from multiple instances - The team wants to place instances in separate fault domains if possible
Based on the exhibit, a workload must remain available even if one datacenter in an Azure region becomes unavailable. The region supports zone deployment. What should the administrator configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse availability sets (which protect against rack-level failures) with availability zones (which protect against entire datacenter failures), leading them to select the wrong answer when the question explicitly requires datacenter-level resilience.
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
✓
Availability zones.
Availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying the workload across two or more zones ensures that if one datacenter fails, the other zones continue to operate, maintaining availability. This directly meets the requirement of surviving a single datacenter outage within a region that supports zone deployment.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
An availability set.
Why it's wrong here
An availability set spreads virtual machines across fault domains and update domains within a single Azure datacenter, which limits the blast radius of hardware failures or planned maintenance events. However, all fault domains still reside in the same datacenter, so a full datacenter outage takes the entire availability set offline. It is therefore a host-level high availability mechanism, not a datacenter-level one.
When this WOULD be correct
If the question asked for high availability for VMs within a single datacenter (e.g., to protect against hardware failures during planned maintenance), an availability set would be the correct answer. For example: 'You need to ensure that at least one VM remains available during updates within the same datacenter.'
- ✓
Availability zones.
Why this is correct
Availability zones place resources in separate physically isolated datacenters within the same region. If one datacenter becomes unavailable, the workload can continue running in another zone. That is the correct resilience option when the requirement explicitly calls for protection from a datacenter-level outage.
- ✗
A resource lock.
Why it's wrong here
A resource lock applies a CanNotDelete or ReadOnly restriction to a subscription, resource group, or individual resource, which is purely a governance control to prevent accidental changes or deletion. It does not replicate the workload, monitor health, or initiate automatic failover, so it has no bearing on whether the workload remains reachable during an infrastructure outage. Locks protect configuration integrity, not service continuity.
When this WOULD be correct
A resource lock would be correct in a scenario where the question asks for a mechanism to prevent accidental deletion or modification of critical resources, such as ensuring a production database cannot be deleted by mistake, without affecting availability or redundancy.
- ✗
A user-defined route.
Why it's wrong here
A user-defined route (UDR) overrides Azure's default routing by steering traffic through a specified next-hop type, such as a network virtual appliance, but it only influences network path selection. It does not replicate state or provide compute redundancy, and a route table cannot redirect traffic to another physical location when a datacenter fails. Thus UDRs address connectivity control, not availability resilience.
When this WOULD be correct
A user-defined route would be correct in a scenario where an administrator needs to force traffic through a network virtual appliance (NVA) for inspection, or to override Azure's default routing to send traffic to a hub network or on-premises via a VPN/ExpressRoute.
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.
✓Availability zones.Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Availability zones place resources in separate physically isolated datacenters within the same region. If one datacenter becomes unavailable, the workload can continue running in another zone. That is the correct resilience option when the requirement explicitly calls for protection from a datacenter-level outage.
✗An availability set.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
An availability set protects against failures within a single datacenter (e.g., rack or hardware failure), not against the loss of an entire datacenter. The question requires resilience across datacenters, which availability sets cannot provide.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
If the question asked for high availability for VMs within a single datacenter (e.g., to protect against hardware failures during planned maintenance), an availability set would be the correct answer. For example: 'You need to ensure that at least one VM remains available during updates within the same datacenter.'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse availability sets with availability zones, thinking both provide datacenter-level redundancy. They might also recall that availability sets distribute VMs across fault domains, which sounds similar to zone distribution.
✗A resource lock.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A resource lock prevents accidental deletion or modification of resources, but does not provide high availability or redundancy across datacenters. The question requires availability even if one datacenter fails, which resource locks cannot address.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A resource lock would be correct in a scenario where the question asks for a mechanism to prevent accidental deletion or modification of critical resources, such as ensuring a production database cannot be deleted by mistake, without affecting availability or redundancy.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse resource locks with availability features, thinking that locking resources ensures they remain available, or they may misinterpret the question as asking for a way to protect resources from failure rather than ensuring uptime.
✗A user-defined route.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
User-defined routes (UDRs) control traffic flow between subnets or to on-premises networks, but they do not provide datacenter-level redundancy. The question requires availability even if one datacenter fails, which is achieved by distributing resources across availability zones, not by custom routing.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A user-defined route would be correct in a scenario where an administrator needs to force traffic through a network virtual appliance (NVA) for inspection, or to override Azure's default routing to send traffic to a hub network or on-premises via a VPN/ExpressRoute.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse network-level redundancy (e.g., routing around a failed datacenter) with application-level redundancy, or they might think that custom routing can redirect traffic away from a failed datacenter, but UDRs do not handle datacenter failures—they only control path selection within the network.
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?”
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Managed Identities for Azure Resources
Key term
Region
A region is a distinct geographic location where a cloud provider operates multiple data centers that are connected by low-latency networks and provide cloud services.
Key term
Availability
Availability is the measure of how often a system or service is operational and accessible when needed, typically expressed as a percentage of uptime.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.