AZ-104 Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Practice Question
You need to run a stateless web workload on Azure virtual machines and automatically increase or decrease instance count based on demand. You also want a single management boundary for the VM instances. Which solution should you deploy?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse an availability set (which provides high availability but no scaling) with a Virtual Machine Scale Set (which provides both scaling and a single management boundary), or they mistakenly think backup/recovery services can manage compute scaling.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
A Virtual Machine Scale Set
A Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS) is the correct solution because it provides an autoscaling group of identical VMs that can automatically increase or decrease instance count based on demand (e.g., CPU or memory metrics). It also offers a single management boundary, allowing you to manage, monitor, and scale all instances as a unified resource rather than individually.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
A Virtual Machine Scale Set
Why this is correct
A Virtual Machine Scale Set is the correct IaaS compute option because it is purpose-built to run a stateless web workload across many identical VM instances as a single collective resource. It provides native autoscaling based on CPU, memory, or custom metrics, integrates with Azure Load Balancer or Application Gateway for traffic distribution, and supports rolling image upgrades—making it far simpler to operate than dozens of individually managed VMs. For stateless applications, scale sets can also scale to zero, which individual VMs cannot do.
- ✗
An availability set with individual VMs
Why it's wrong here
An availability set only spreads the individual VMs you manually create across fault and update domains to protect against rack failures and planned maintenance windows; it does not provide autoscaling or any unified fleet management. You must create, patch, and scale each VM separately, and if one instance is overwhelmed, no automatic addition of extra VM instances occurs. While it improves availability for a fixed set of VMs, it fails to meet the elasticity requirement of a stateless web workload that needs to respond to variable traffic.
When this WOULD be correct
You need to ensure high availability for a set of VMs running a critical application, with no requirement for automatic scaling. The question specifies that VMs must be placed in separate fault and update domains to protect against hardware failures and maintenance events.
- ✗
Azure Backup
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup is a data-protection service that coordinates backup policies, creates recovery points, and restores VMs or files, but it is not a compute offering and cannot serve HTTP requests. It runs inside the VM as an extension (or as an agent) to send data to the vault, consuming resources rather than providing any runtime capacity for the web application. While you absolutely should back up the web VMs, Azure Backup exists to protect the workload in a separate plane from the one that runs and scales it.
When this WOULD be correct
An exam question asking for a solution to back up Azure VMs, including application-consistent backups and long-term retention, would make Azure Backup the correct answer.
- ✗
A Recovery Services vault
Why it's wrong here
A Recovery Services vault is a management container that holds backup snapshots and replication data for Azure resources, including VMs, files, and SQL databases. It has no compute capacity, cannot execute application code, and does not expose endpoints to serve web traffic. Selecting it for a stateless web workload would be mixing the data-protection plane with the application-compute plane; it is a supporting service for backup and disaster recovery, not a hosting platform.
When this WOULD be correct
A Recovery Services vault would be correct in a scenario where you need to centrally manage backups and perform disaster recovery for Azure VMs, such as implementing Azure Backup for multiple VMs or configuring site recovery replication.
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.
✓A Virtual Machine Scale SetCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
A Virtual Machine Scale Set is the correct IaaS compute option because it is purpose-built to run a stateless web workload across many identical VM instances as a single collective resource. It provides native autoscaling based on CPU, memory, or custom metrics, integrates with Azure Load Balancer or Application Gateway for traffic distribution, and supports rolling image upgrades—making it far simpler to operate than dozens of individually managed VMs. For stateless applications, scale sets can also scale to zero, which individual VMs cannot do.
✗An availability set with individual VMsWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
An availability set with individual VMs does not provide automatic scaling based on demand; it only ensures high availability by distributing VMs across fault and update domains. It lacks the built-in autoscaling and single management boundary of a scale set.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
You need to ensure high availability for a set of VMs running a critical application, with no requirement for automatic scaling. The question specifies that VMs must be placed in separate fault and update domains to protect against hardware failures and maintenance events.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse availability sets with scale sets, thinking both provide scaling capabilities, or they may focus on the 'management boundary' aspect without realizing that availability sets do not offer a unified management interface for scaling.
✗Azure BackupWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Backup is a backup service for protecting data, not a compute scaling solution. It does not provide automatic scaling or a management boundary for VM instances.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An exam question asking for a solution to back up Azure VMs, including application-consistent backups and long-term retention, would make Azure Backup the correct answer.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse backup with scaling, thinking that backup services can handle workload changes, or they may misread the question as asking for a disaster recovery solution.
✗A Recovery Services vaultWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A Recovery Services vault is used for backup and disaster recovery, not for scaling or managing compute instances. It does not provide automatic scaling or a management boundary for VM instances.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A Recovery Services vault would be correct in a scenario where you need to centrally manage backups and perform disaster recovery for Azure VMs, such as implementing Azure Backup for multiple VMs or configuring site recovery replication.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse Recovery Services vault with a management boundary for VMs because it can hold backup data and replication settings, but it does not manage compute resources or scaling.
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?”
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-104 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-104 exam.