AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
Exhibit
Backup policy: DailyBackupPolicy Schedule: every day at 02:00 Retention: daily 7 days, weekly 4 weeks, monthly 12 months Requirement: operators must recover any daily backup for 30 days; monthly retention is already sufficient.
Based on the exhibit, the backup policy must support 30-day recovery for daily backups while keeping 12 months of monthly copies. Which setting should be changed?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse retention duration with backup frequency or assume that archive tier extends retention, when in fact archive tier only changes storage tier without altering the retention count.
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
✓
Increase daily retention from 7 days to 30 days.
The backup policy currently has daily retention set to 7 days, which only keeps daily recovery points for a week. To meet the requirement of 30-day recovery for daily backups, you must increase the daily retention to 30 days. This ensures that each daily backup is retained for 30 days, allowing point-in-time recovery within that window.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Increase daily retention from 7 days to 30 days.
Why this is correct
Increasing daily retention to 30 days directly extends the number of daily restore points kept by the Recovery Services vault backup policy from 7 to 30, thereby meeting the stated requirement to recover from any point within the last 30 days. Daily retention counts calendar-day restore points, and because the backup runs daily, this yields up to 30 distinct recovery points. Monthly retention is independent and remains unchanged, so the long-term 30-year monthly archive is unaffected. This is the only option that both preserves the existing daily schedule and extends the recoverable daily window to exactly 30 days.
- ✗
Increase weekly retention from 4 weeks to 30 weeks.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing weekly retention from 4 weeks to 30 weeks would preserve more weekly restore points, but weekly restore points are only taken once per week, so this does not provide the ability to recover from any specific day within the last 30 days. The requirement explicitly asks for 30 days of daily restores, meaning restore points must exist for each day (or at least for each day's changes) across that period; weekly points would only cover the exact moment each backup ran, leaving gaps of up to six days between recoverable states. Moreover, extending weekly retention to 30 weeks would increase storage costs without adding any daily recovery granularity, and it does not alter the daily retention setting of 7 days. Therefore, this option is incorrect because it targets the wrong retention dimension—weekly rather than daily.
When this WOULD be correct
If the question required keeping weekly backups for 30 weeks (e.g., for long-term weekly recovery points) while daily retention was already sufficient, then increasing weekly retention to 30 weeks would be correct.
- ✗
Change the backup schedule to every 30 days.
Why it's wrong here
Changing the backup schedule to every 30 days would mean only one restore point per month instead of one per day, which actually reduces the recovery-point objective from daily granularity to monthly granularity. The requirement explicitly says the backup policy must support 30 days of recoverability, which implies the ability to restore from any day within that window, not merely to have a snapshot taken once every 30 days. A monthly schedule would also leave a 30-day gap between backups, meaning data changes during the last 30 days would be unrecoverable if a failure occurred just before the next scheduled backup. This option contradicts the core requirement of daily recovery options and is therefore incorrect.
When this WOULD be correct
This option would be correct if the requirement was to have only monthly backups for long-term retention, such as 'keep one backup per month for 12 months' with no daily recovery needed.
- ✗
Turn on archive tier for the backup policy.
Why it's wrong here
The archive tier in Azure Backup is a storage tier used to move older recovery points to cool, low-cost storage after a defined duration, but enabling it does not change how long daily restore points are retained in the operational tier. Archive tier settings are configured as an additional layer within the backup policy's retention rules, not as a replacement for the retention period itself; the requirement is to keep daily restore points available for 30 days, which demands extending the daily retention count, not changing where older backups are stored. Even if archive tier is turned on, the daily retention would remain at 7 days unless specifically increased, so the recovery points older than 7 days would be deleted and never become eligible for archiving. Thus, this option fails to address the actual retention requirement and is incorrect.
When this WOULD be correct
If the question required reducing storage costs for long-term backups (e.g., monthly copies retained for 12 months) while keeping them recoverable, enabling archive tier would be correct to move older backups to cheaper storage.
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.
✓Increase daily retention from 7 days to 30 days.Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Increasing daily retention to 30 days directly extends the number of daily restore points kept by the Recovery Services vault backup policy from 7 to 30, thereby meeting the stated requirement to recover from any point within the last 30 days. Daily retention counts calendar-day restore points, and because the backup runs daily, this yields up to 30 distinct recovery points. Monthly retention is independent and remains unchanged, so the long-term 30-year monthly archive is unaffected. This is the only option that both preserves the existing daily schedule and extends the recoverable daily window to exactly 30 days.
✗Increase weekly retention from 4 weeks to 30 weeks.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
The requirement is for 30-day recovery of daily backups, not weekly. Increasing weekly retention to 30 weeks would keep weekly backups for 30 weeks, but daily backups would still only be retained for 7 days, failing the 30-day daily recovery goal.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
If the question required keeping weekly backups for 30 weeks (e.g., for long-term weekly recovery points) while daily retention was already sufficient, then increasing weekly retention to 30 weeks would be correct.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'weekly retention' with 'daily retention' or think that extending weekly retention covers daily recovery needs, not realizing that daily backups are separate and have their own retention setting.
✗Change the backup schedule to every 30 days.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Changing the backup schedule to every 30 days would only create one backup per month, failing the requirement for daily backups with 30-day recovery.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
This option would be correct if the requirement was to have only monthly backups for long-term retention, such as 'keep one backup per month for 12 months' with no daily recovery needed.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse backup frequency with retention duration, thinking that setting the schedule to 30 days automatically satisfies the 30-day recovery period.
✗Turn on archive tier for the backup policy.Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Enabling archive tier moves older backups to cold storage but does not change retention durations; the policy still needs daily retention set to 30 days to meet the 30-day recovery requirement.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
If the question required reducing storage costs for long-term backups (e.g., monthly copies retained for 12 months) while keeping them recoverable, enabling archive tier would be correct to move older backups to cheaper storage.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think archive tier extends retention or automatically meets recovery point objectives, confusing cost optimization with retention duration settings.
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
Azure Policy and Initiatives
Key term
Backup policy
A backup policy is a documented set of rules that defines what data to back up, how often, where to store it, and how long to keep it, ensuring data can be restored after loss.
Key term
Policy
A policy is a set of rules or guidelines that defines how an organization manages, secures, and operates its IT systems and services.
About these practice questions
This AZ-104 question is part of Courseiva's 1,049-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on AZ-104
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Which policy best matches the requirement for daily backups retained for 30 days?
easy- A.A policy with daily backups retained for 7 days.
- ✓ B.A policy with daily backups retained for 30 days.
- C.A policy with weekly backups retained for 30 days.
- D.A policy with daily backups retained for 365 days.
Why B: The requirement explicitly states 'daily backups retained for 30 days.' A backup policy in Azure Backup allows you to define the frequency (daily) and retention duration (30 days) for recovery points. This policy directly matches the requirement without over-retention or under-retention.
JA
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.