Exhibit
Monitoring summary: - CPU averages 18% from 00:00 to 08:00 - CPU averages 74% from 09:00 to 17:00 - CPU averages 22% after 18:00 - The application is stateless and can run on any instance
Based on the exhibit, which Azure compute service should you deploy for a stateless web app that needs more instances during business hours and fewer at night?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
A single larger virtual machine.
A larger single VM can increase capacity, but it cannot automatically add or remove instances based on demand.
Best answer
A virtual machine scale set with autoscale rules.
A virtual machine scale set is the right choice because it can run multiple identical instances and scale them automatically when demand changes. The exhibit shows predictable workload spikes, and the app is stateless, so instances can be added or removed without affecting user sessions.
Distractor review
An availability set with two VMs.
An availability set improves availability, but it does not provide automatic scale-out or scale-in based on CPU usage.
Distractor review
A dedicated host with one VM per host.
A dedicated host gives physical isolation, but it does not help the workload grow and shrink with traffic patterns.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A route table contains these entries: 10.0.0.0/8 with next hop Virtual appliance, and 10.1.1.0/24 with next hop Virtual network gateway. Which next hop will Azure use for traffic to 10.1.1.5?
Question 2
You are deploying a stateless web application on Azure virtual machines. The solution must automatically add and remove instances based on CPU demand and allow all instances to be managed as one logical group. Which Azure compute feature should you deploy?
Question 3
You are deploying a Windows Server VM for an internal app. The VM must support Secure Boot and vTPM later, its OS disk must survive host moves, and the team wants the lowest-cost managed disk tier that still behaves like a normal writable OS disk. Which two choices should you make? Select two.
Question 4
You need to deploy several identical virtual machines and ensure that the failure of a single Azure host does not affect all of them. Which feature should you use?
Question 5
You need to connect VNet-Hub and VNet-Spoke so that resources in both virtual networks can communicate privately over the Microsoft backbone. Both virtual networks are in the same region. What should you configure?
Question 6
You need to create a storage account that provides the lowest-cost redundant storage for non-critical data and only needs protection against local disk or server failure within a single datacenter. Which redundancy option should you choose?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-104 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: A virtual machine scale set with autoscale rules. — A virtual machine scale set with autoscale rules fits the scenario because the workload is stateless and its CPU usage changes predictably. Scale sets let Azure add instances during busy periods and remove them when demand drops. That gives the application the capacity it needs while avoiding unnecessary cost during quiet hours, which is exactly what the exhibit describes. Why others are wrong: A single larger VM only scales vertically and cannot add instances automatically. An availability set improves resilience, not scalability. A dedicated host is about hardware isolation, not elastic scaling, so it does not address the changing demand pattern in the exhibit.
What should I do if I get this AZ-104 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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