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.
Exhibit
Current assignments for RG-App:
- HelpDeskGroup -> Reader
- PlatformAdmins -> Contributor
Business requirement:
- HelpDeskGroup can start, stop, and restart VMs only
- HelpDeskGroup must not manage NICs, disks, or other resources
Based on the exhibit, the help desk team must be able to restart virtual machines in RG-App, but they must not be able to create, delete, or resize VMs. What is the best action?
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.
Current assignments for RG-App:
- HelpDeskGroup -> Reader
- PlatformAdmins -> Contributor
Business requirement:
- HelpDeskGroup can start, stop, and restart VMs only
- HelpDeskGroup must not manage NICs, disks, or other resources
A
Assign Virtual Machine Contributor to HelpDeskGroup at the subscription scope.
Why wrong: This grants far more than restart capability and at the subscription scope it applies to more resources than needed, which violates least privilege.
B
Assign Contributor to HelpDeskGroup at RG-App.
Why wrong: Contributor is too broad because it allows many resource management actions beyond restarting VMs, including creating and deleting resources in the resource group.
C
Create a custom RBAC role that allows VM start, restart, and deallocate actions, then assign it at RG-App.
A custom role is the best fit when no built-in role is narrow enough. Assigning it at the resource group scope limits the permission to RG-App, while the role itself can be restricted to only the VM operational actions that the help desk needs.
D
Assign Owner to HelpDeskGroup at RG-App and use Azure Policy to block unwanted changes.
Why wrong: Owner is even more permissive than Contributor, and Azure Policy does not replace authorization. Policy can enforce compliance, but it does not narrow RBAC permissions for the team.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a custom RBAC role that allows VM start, restart, and deallocate actions, then assign it at RG-App.
Option C is correct because the help desk team needs only specific actions (start, restart, deallocate) without the ability to create, delete, or resize VMs. The built-in Virtual Machine Contributor role includes write permissions that allow creating and deleting VMs, so a custom RBAC role that explicitly grants only the required actions (Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action, restart/action, deallocate/action) and is assigned at the RG-App scope meets the requirement precisely.
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.
✗
Assign Virtual Machine Contributor to HelpDeskGroup at the subscription scope.
Why it's wrong here
This grants far more than restart capability and at the subscription scope it applies to more resources than needed, which violates least privilege.
✗
Assign Contributor to HelpDeskGroup at RG-App.
Why it's wrong here
Contributor is too broad because it allows many resource management actions beyond restarting VMs, including creating and deleting resources in the resource group.
✓
Create a custom RBAC role that allows VM start, restart, and deallocate actions, then assign it at RG-App.
Why this is correct
A custom role is the best fit when no built-in role is narrow enough. Assigning it at the resource group scope limits the permission to RG-App, while the role itself can be restricted to only the VM operational actions that the help desk needs.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Assign Owner to HelpDeskGroup at RG-App and use Azure Policy to block unwanted changes.
Why it's wrong here
Owner is even more permissive than Contributor, and Azure Policy does not replace authorization. Policy can enforce compliance, but it does not narrow RBAC permissions for the team.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume the built-in Virtual Machine Contributor role is the correct choice because it sounds restrictive, but it actually includes write permissions that allow VM creation and deletion, making a custom role necessary for the exact set of actions required.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Custom RBAC roles are defined using a JSON structure with Actions, NotActions, DataActions, and AssignableScopes. For this scenario, the role would include 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action', 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/restart/action', and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/deallocate/action' in the Actions array, while excluding any write or delete permissions. This granular control is essential in enterprise environments where the principle of least privilege must be enforced, such as when a help desk needs to perform basic VM lifecycle operations without risking infrastructure changes.
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
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
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: Create a custom RBAC role that allows VM start, restart, and deallocate actions, then assign it at RG-App. — Option C is correct because the help desk team needs only specific actions (start, restart, deallocate) without the ability to create, delete, or resize VMs. The built-in Virtual Machine Contributor role includes write permissions that allow creating and deleting VMs, so a custom RBAC role that explicitly grants only the required actions (Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action, restart/action, deallocate/action) and is assigned at the RG-App scope meets the requirement precisely.
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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