The answer is a Metric alert rule. This is the correct choice because it directly monitors the 'Percentage CPU' metric on Azure VMs, evaluating the average value over a sliding window of 10 minutes and firing when it exceeds the 85% threshold, which satisfies the requirement for a metric-based automatic notification. On the AZ-104 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of Azure Monitor’s alerting capabilities, specifically the distinction between Metric Alerts (for performance metrics like CPU) and Activity Log Alerts (for resource-level events). A common trap is confusing Metric Alerts with Service Health alerts or Action Groups—remember that the alert rule itself defines the condition and signal, while the Action Group handles the email and SMS delivery. For a memory tip, think “Metric for measurement, Action for notification” to keep the two components separate.
AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
This AZ-104 practice question tests your understanding of monitor and maintain azure resources. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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.
A production Azure VM farm runs customer-facing APIs. Operations wants an automatic notification when the average Percentage CPU on any VM stays above 85 percent for 10 minutes, and the notification must reach both email and SMS recipients. Which two Azure Monitor items must be configured? Select two.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Metric alert rule
A Metric alert rule is correct because it monitors the 'Percentage CPU' metric on Azure VMs and can trigger when the average value exceeds 85% for a duration of 10 minutes. This rule evaluates the metric over a specified time window and fires an alert based on the threshold condition, meeting the requirement for automatic notification based on performance metrics.
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.
✓
Metric alert rule
Why this is correct
Metric alert rules evaluate numeric platform metrics and trigger when thresholds are crossed.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Action group
Why this is correct
Action groups define who receives notifications and which actions run when alerts fire.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Diagnostic setting
Why it's wrong here
Diagnostic settings export logs and metrics, but they do not create threshold-based notifications.
✗
Workbook
Why it's wrong here
Workbooks visualize operational data, but they do not send alerts to recipients.
✗
Service health alert
Why it's wrong here
Service health alerts report Azure platform incidents, not workload CPU thresholds on VMs.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse a Metric alert rule with a Diagnostic setting, thinking that streaming metrics to a destination automatically triggers notifications, or they mistakenly select a Service health alert because they associate 'notification' with Azure service health, not VM-level performance.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Metric alert rules in Azure Monitor use a multi-dimensional signal (e.g., Percentage CPU) and evaluate it using a threshold or dynamic threshold with a specified aggregation granularity (e.g., 1-minute intervals) and evaluation frequency. The '10 minutes' condition is implemented by setting the 'Aggregation granularity' to 1 minute and 'Frequency of evaluation' to 1 minute, with a 'Threshold' of 85 and 'Operator' greater than, and the 'Number of violations to trigger' set to 10 consecutive data points. This ensures the alert only fires when the CPU remains above 85% for a sustained period, avoiding false positives from transient spikes.
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.
Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources — This question tests Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Metric alert rule — A Metric alert rule is correct because it monitors the 'Percentage CPU' metric on Azure VMs and can trigger when the average value exceeds 85% for a duration of 10 minutes. This rule evaluates the metric over a specified time window and fires an alert based on the threshold condition, meeting the requirement for automatic notification based on performance metrics.
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.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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. You need to receive an email when average CPU usage on VM-App01 exceeds 85 percent for 10 minutes. Which Azure Monitor components should you configure?
medium
✓ A.A metric alert and an action group
B.A resource lock and Azure Advisor
C.An activity log alert only
D.A budget alert
Why A: A metric alert monitors a specific Azure resource metric (like CPU percentage) and triggers when a condition (e.g., average > 85%) is met over a specified evaluation period (e.g., 10 minutes). An action group defines the notification actions (e.g., sending an email) when the alert fires. Together, they fulfill the requirement to receive an email based on a performance threshold.
Variation 2. You need to be notified whenever the average CPU usage of VM-App01 exceeds 80 percent for 10 minutes. The solution must send an email to the operations team automatically. What should you configure?
medium
✓ A.Create an Azure Monitor metric alert and link it to an action group.
B.Create an Azure Advisor recommendation alert.
C.Create an activity log alert for the virtual machine.
D.Create a subscription budget alert.
Why A: Option A is correct because Azure Monitor metric alerts can evaluate performance counters like CPU usage over a specified time window (e.g., 10 minutes) and trigger an action group when the threshold (80%) is exceeded. The action group can be configured with an email notification to the operations team, meeting the requirement automatically.
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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