A team deployed a private endpoint for an Azure Storage account in VNet-A. The private endpoint is healthy, but VMs in VNet-A still resolve the storage account name to the public IP address. What should the administrator configure next?
Private endpoints depend on DNS so client requests resolve the service name to the private IP rather than the public endpoint. If VMs in VNet-A still receive the public address, the private DNS zone is not linked or not configured correctly for that VNet. Linking the zone ensures the Azure-provided or custom DNS path returns the private endpoint address, allowing the workloads to reach the storage account privately as intended.
Why this answer
When a private endpoint is deployed, the storage account's FQDN must resolve to the private IP address within the virtual network. By default, Azure Private DNS zones (privatelink.blob.core.windows.net) are not automatically linked to the virtual network. Linking the private DNS zone to VNet-A enables DNS resolution of the storage account name to the private endpoint's IP address instead of the public IP.
Exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often confuse network-level controls (route tables, NSGs, service endpoints) with DNS resolution, assuming that a healthy private endpoint alone will automatically change how the storage account name is resolved.
Why the other options are wrong
A route table cannot redirect traffic to a private endpoint because private endpoints use Azure Private Link, which relies on DNS resolution to direct traffic to the private IP, not routing. Route tables affect network traffic based on IP prefixes, but the private endpoint's IP is not a destination prefix that can be routed to; the traffic must first resolve to the private IP via DNS.
The issue is DNS resolution, not network traffic filtering. NSG rules control inbound/outbound traffic but do not affect how VMs resolve the storage account's FQDN to an IP address.
Service endpoints route traffic to the public IP of the storage account via the Azure backbone, not to a private endpoint. They do not enable private DNS resolution, so VMs would still resolve the storage account to its public IP.