AZ-104 Implement and Manage Storage Practice Question
You are managing an Azure Storage account that hosts a large number of blobs. You need to ensure that data can be recovered if blobs are accidentally deleted or overwritten. Which three of the following actions should you take? (Choose three.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse lifecycle management or tier changes as data protection mechanisms, but they are cost-management features, not recovery features; the correct answers are all specifically designed for data recovery from accidental deletion or overwrite.
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
✓
Enable soft delete for blobs.
Soft delete for blobs preserves deleted blobs for a specified retention period, allowing recovery from accidental deletion. Blob versioning maintains previous versions of a blob, enabling restoration if a blob is overwritten or deleted. Point-in-time restore for block blobs allows reverting the container to an earlier state, recovering from bulk accidental modifications or deletions. Together, these three features provide comprehensive protection against accidental data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable soft delete for blobs.
Why this is correct
Soft delete for blobs is a storage account data protection feature that preserves deleted blobs in a soft-deleted state for a configurable retention period. When a blob is deleted, it isn't immediately purged; instead, it can be restored within the retention window, with the deleted snapshot list retained for recovery. This directly addresses accidental deletion, making it a correct solution for the scenario.
- ✓
Enable blob versioning.
Why this is correct
Blob versioning is a storage account setting that maintains a history of blob versions whenever a blob is written, overwritten, or deleted. Each version captures the state of the blob at a point in time, so you can promote a previous version to the current version to undo unintended modifications or deletions. It works alongside soft delete but specifically protects against overwrites and the loss of previous states.
- ✗
Configure a lifecycle management policy to move blobs to the Cool tier.
Why it's wrong here
A lifecycle management policy automates blob tier transitions based on age, such as moving from Hot to Cool, but this is purely a cost optimization feature. Moving blobs to the Cool tier does not add any protection against deletion or corruption; Cool tier is simply a lower-cost storage tier for infrequently accessed data. The requirement is data recovery, not cost savings, so this option fails to address accidental deletion.
- ✓
Enable point-in-time restore for block blobs.
Why this is correct
Point-in-time restore for block blobs allows you to restore complete containers or selected blobs to a previous state if blob versioning is enabled. It creates a restore plan with a timestamp, and then it replaces the current blobs with the versions that existed at that earlier time. This is particularly useful for large-scale rollback after accidental writes or deletions, making it a valid recovery feature.
- ✗
Enable Azure Defender for Storage.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Defender for Storage is an advanced threat protection service that detects anomalies in storage activity, such as unusual access patterns, brute-force attempts, and potential malware uploads. It raises security alerts but does not retain or reconstruct deleted or overwritten blob data. Since it provides no rollback or recovery capability, it does not meet the requirement of protecting blobs from accidental deletion.
- ✗
Set the default access tier to Archive.
Why it's wrong here
Setting the default access tier to Archive directs all new blobs to the Archive tier, which offers the lowest storage cost but requires rehydration before data can be accessed. Archive tier is intended for long-lived, rarely accessed data, and it does not offer any recovery mechanism for deletion or overwrite. In fact, deleting a blob from Archive is permanent once the tier is set, so this option actually increases the risk of data loss.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Managed Identities for Azure Resources
Key term
Container
A container is a lightweight, standalone software package that includes everything needed to run an application, such as code, runtime, system tools, and libraries.
Key term
Blob
A blob is a large piece of unstructured data, like a photo or video, stored in the cloud with a unique identifier.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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