Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company has two application VMs in the same Azure region. The main requirement is to reduce downtime during planned host maintenance. The business does not require protection from a complete datacenter outage. Which option should you choose?
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.
A
Distractor review
Availability zones
Zones provide stronger datacenter-level protection than needed, but they are not the best match for this simpler maintenance requirement.
B
Best answer
Availability set
An availability set spreads VMs across update domains and fault domains within a datacenter boundary. That helps reduce downtime during planned maintenance and some hardware issues. Since the requirement does not include protection from an entire datacenter outage, an availability set is the right and simpler choice.
C
Distractor review
Virtual machine scale set
A scale set helps with horizontal scaling, but it is not specifically the simplest choice for planned host maintenance protection.
D
Distractor review
Proximity placement group
A proximity placement group is for lowering latency between resources, not for availability during maintenance.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
Related practice questions
Related AZ-104 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
AZ-104 Azure RBAC practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 Azure RBAC.
AZ-104 storage account practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 storage account.
AZ-104 virtual network practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 virtual network.
AZ-104 NSG practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 NSG.
AZ-104 Azure Monitor practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 Azure Monitor.
AZ-104 backup practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 backup.
AZ-104 managed identity practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 managed identity.
AZ-104 load balancer practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 load balancer.
AZ-104 Azure Policy practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 Azure Policy.
AZ-104 virtual machine practice questions
Practise AZ-104 questions linked to AZ-104 virtual machine.
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?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Availability set — An availability set is the correct choice because it protects against planned maintenance by distributing VMs across update domains and fault domains. This reduces the chance that both VMs are affected at the same time. Since the business does not need protection from a whole datacenter failure, availability sets provide the right level of resilience without adding the complexity of zones. Why others are wrong: Availability zones are more resilient than necessary for this requirement. VM scale sets are for scaling groups of similar VMs, not specifically for host maintenance protection. Proximity placement groups optimize latency, but they do not provide high availability. The best answer is the one that addresses planned maintenance in a single datacenter context.
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.
Discussion
Loading comments…
Sign in to join the discussion.