AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of deploy and manage azure compute. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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.
Exhibit
Region capabilities:
- East US 2: supports Availability Zones
Requirements:
- Deploy two identical web server VMs
- Keep the service available if one datacenter fails
- Use Azure Load Balancer for traffic distribution
Based on the exhibit, the company will deploy two identical web server VMs in East US 2 behind a load balancer. The service must keep running if one datacenter in the region becomes unavailable. Which deployment choice best meets the requirement?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Region capabilities:
- East US 2: supports Availability Zones
Requirements:
- Deploy two identical web server VMs
- Keep the service available if one datacenter fails
- Use Azure Load Balancer for traffic distribution
A
Place both VMs in an availability set so Azure can spread them across fault domains.
Why wrong: Availability sets improve maintenance and host fault tolerance, but they stay inside one datacenter boundary.
B
Place one VM in each of two availability zones and front them with the load balancer.
Availability zones place each VM in a separate datacenter boundary, which protects against one zone failure. If you distribute the web servers across zones, the load balancer can continue sending traffic to the remaining healthy instance when a zone becomes unavailable. This design matches the requirement to survive a datacenter outage within the region.
C
Place both VMs in one availability zone because all zones in a region share failure domains.
Why wrong: A single availability zone does not provide protection from that zone failing. Zones are meant to isolate failures from each other, not share them.
D
Deploy a single VM because Azure automatically replicates it across the region.
Why wrong: A single VM has no built-in redundancy, and Azure does not automatically replicate it into another datacenter for you.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Place one VM in each of two availability zones and front them with the load balancer.
Option B is correct because deploying one VM in each of two availability zones within East US 2 ensures that the VMs are physically separated across distinct datacenters, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. If one datacenter (zone) fails, the other zone remains operational, and the load balancer automatically directs traffic to the healthy VM. This meets the requirement of keeping the service running if one datacenter in the region becomes unavailable.
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 both VMs in an availability set so Azure can spread them across fault domains.
Why it's wrong here
Availability sets improve maintenance and host fault tolerance, but they stay inside one datacenter boundary.
✓
Place one VM in each of two availability zones and front them with the load balancer.
Why this is correct
Availability zones place each VM in a separate datacenter boundary, which protects against one zone failure. If you distribute the web servers across zones, the load balancer can continue sending traffic to the remaining healthy instance when a zone becomes unavailable. This design matches the requirement to survive a datacenter outage within the region.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Place both VMs in one availability zone because all zones in a region share failure domains.
Why it's wrong here
A single availability zone does not provide protection from that zone failing. Zones are meant to isolate failures from each other, not share them.
✗
Deploy a single VM because Azure automatically replicates it across the region.
Why it's wrong here
A single VM has no built-in redundancy, and Azure does not automatically replicate it into another datacenter for you.
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 one datacenter) with availability zones (which protect against full datacenter outages), leading them to choose Option A as a sufficient solution.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Availability zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and network infrastructure. The load balancer uses a frontend IP and health probes to detect zone-level failures and reroute traffic to the healthy zone. In contrast, an availability set uses fault domains (racks) within a single datacenter, protecting against rack-level failures but not datacenter outages.
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.
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: Place one VM in each of two availability zones and front them with the load balancer. — Option B is correct because deploying one VM in each of two availability zones within East US 2 ensures that the VMs are physically separated across distinct datacenters, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. If one datacenter (zone) fails, the other zone remains operational, and the load balancer automatically directs traffic to the healthy VM. This meets the requirement of keeping the service running if one datacenter in the region becomes unavailable.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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