Three Azure VMs in different resource groups need to access the same Azure resources using one identity. The identity must keep working if any VM is deleted and recreated. What should the administrator assign to the VMs?
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 system-assigned managed identity on each VM.
A system-assigned identity is tied to one VM and is removed when that VM is deleted.
Best answer
A user-assigned managed identity.
A user-assigned managed identity is independent of any single VM, so it can be reused across multiple machines.
Distractor review
A local administrator account.
Local accounts are not Azure identities and are inappropriate for accessing Azure resources securely.
Distractor review
An Azure Blueprint assignment.
Blueprints help with governance and deployment consistency, but they are not an authentication identity.
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 user-assigned managed identity. — A user-assigned managed identity is the correct choice because it exists as a separate Azure resource and can be attached to multiple VMs. That makes it stable even if one VM is deleted and recreated, which is exactly what the requirement calls for. It also avoids storing secrets on the machines while giving the shared workload a consistent identity for Azure access. Why others are wrong: A system-assigned identity is lifecycle-bound to one VM, so deleting or recreating the VM changes the identity. A local administrator account is not suitable for Azure resource authentication and increases credential management risk. Azure Blueprints governs deployment patterns, but it does not provide a reusable runtime identity for the VMs.
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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