AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question

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 the same availability set so Azure separates them across update domains.

  Why it's wrong here

  An availability set distributes VMs across fault domains and update domains within a single datacenter (typically within one availability zone). This protects against rack-level hardware failures and scheduled maintenance reboots, but not against the loss of an entire datacenter or zone. If that datacenter experiences an outage, all VMs in the availability set can become unavailable. For production workloads that must survive a zone failure, availability zones are required to isolate instances across separate datacenters.

  When this WOULD be correct

  If the requirement was to protect against planned maintenance or hardware failures within a single datacenter (e.g., ensuring VMs are on different update and fault domains), an availability set would be the correct choice.

• ✓

  Deploy the VMs across two availability zones in the same region.

  Why this is correct

  Availability zones place resources in separate datacenters within the same Azure region. That design protects the workload if a full datacenter or zone experiences an outage. For production systems that must survive a zone failure, zones provide stronger resilience than availability sets. This is the best fit when the region supports zones and the application can run with zone-separated instances.

• ✗

  Use a single larger VM size with premium SSD storage for better uptime.

  Why it's wrong here

  Selecting a single larger VM with premium SSDs improves compute and I/O performance but still creates a single point of failure. If the physical host or the underlying datacenter fails, that VM goes down, no matter how large or fast it is. Premium SSD is a storage performance tier for low latency and high IOPS, not a high-availability redundancy mechanism. To meet Azure's 99.99% VM uptime SLA, you need at least two instances placed in different availability zones or an availability set.

  When this WOULD be correct

  This option would be correct if the requirement was to maximize performance for a single VM workload that cannot be distributed, and the question asked for the best way to improve uptime within a single datacenter (e.g., using premium SSD for higher durability and SLA).

• ✗

  Deploy the VMs in the same resource group and enable auto-shutdown.

  Why it's wrong here

  Deploying the VMs in the same resource group and enabling auto-shutdown does not improve availability. Resource groups are logical management boundaries that do not influence physical placement or fault tolerance. Auto-shutdown is a cost-control feature that schedules VMs to power off, which actually reduces uptime rather than protecting against failures. This approach creates a single management scope but does not mitigate datacenter or zone outages.

  When this WOULD be correct

  A question asks for a cost-saving measure for non-production VMs that are only needed during business hours, with no high availability requirement. Enabling auto-shutdown would automatically stop VMs at a specified time to reduce compute costs.

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.

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?”