AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
You want Azure to identify underutilized virtual machines and recommend ways to reduce cost and improve security posture. Which service should you use?
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
✓
Azure Advisor
Azure Advisor analyzes Azure resources and provides recommendations related to cost, security, reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Azure Advisor
Why this is correct
Azure Advisor is a personalized cloud consulting service that continuously analyzes your resource configuration and usage telemetry to provide recommendations across cost, performance, reliability, and security. For underutilized virtual machines, it monitors CPU and network utilization over a rolling period and flags VMs with consistently low activity, suggesting resizing or shutting them down to save cost. The 'Cost' section of Azure Advisor directly surfaces idle and underutilized VMs, making it the definitive tool for this task.
- ✗
Azure Policy
Why it's wrong here
Azure Policy is a governance and compliance service that enforces rules on resource types, locations, tags, and configurations across your environment. It evaluates whether resources comply with defined policies and can deny non-compliant deployments or apply remediation with managed identities. However, Policy does not ingest real-time performance or utilization data from Azure Monitor; by itself it has no native logic to determine whether a VM is underutilized, so it is not the correct tool for this scenario.
When this WOULD be correct
Azure Policy would be correct if the question asked: 'You need to ensure that all VMs in your subscription are deployed only in allowed regions and have mandatory tags. Which service should you use?'
- ✗
Azure Backup
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup is a data protection and disaster recovery service that creates snapshots and stores them in Recovery Services vaults for point-in-time restoration. It does not analyze performance metrics such as CPU, network I/O, or disk activity, nor does it assess how efficiently a VM is being used. Its sole purpose is to safeguard data and enable recovery after accidental deletion or failure, so it cannot provide guidance on identifying underutilized virtual machines.
When this WOULD be correct
A question asks: 'You need to ensure that all virtual machines in your subscription have daily backups. Which service should you configure?' Azure Backup would be the correct answer.
- ✗
Virtual network peering
Why it's wrong here
Virtual network peering is a networking feature that connects two Azure virtual networks, allowing them to exchange traffic privately through the Microsoft backbone. It focuses exclusively on connectivity, routing, and IP address space design, and has no insight into VM workload characteristics or resource consumption. Peering neither reports utilization metrics nor offers any optimization recommendations, making it entirely irrelevant to detecting underutilized virtual machines.
When this WOULD be correct
A question asks: 'You need to enable low-latency communication between two virtual networks in different Azure regions. Which solution should you use?'
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.
✓Azure AdvisorCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
Azure Advisor is a personalized cloud consulting service that continuously analyzes your resource configuration and usage telemetry to provide recommendations across cost, performance, reliability, and security. For underutilized virtual machines, it monitors CPU and network utilization over a rolling period and flags VMs with consistently low activity, suggesting resizing or shutting them down to save cost. The 'Cost' section of Azure Advisor directly surfaces idle and underutilized VMs, making it the definitive tool for this task.
✗Azure PolicyWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Policy enforces compliance rules and governance, but it does not analyze resource utilization or provide cost/security recommendations. The question specifically asks for identifying underutilized VMs and recommending cost/security improvements, which is Azure Advisor's function.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
Azure Policy would be correct if the question asked: 'You need to ensure that all VMs in your subscription are deployed only in allowed regions and have mandatory tags. Which service should you use?'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse policy-based governance with advisory recommendations, thinking that enforcing policies (like requiring certain VM sizes) could indirectly reduce costs, but Azure Advisor is the dedicated tool for optimization suggestions.
✗Azure BackupWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Backup is a service for backing up data and workloads, not for identifying underutilized resources or providing cost and security recommendations.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A question asks: 'You need to ensure that all virtual machines in your subscription have daily backups. Which service should you configure?' Azure Backup would be the correct answer.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse backup with optimization, thinking that backup processes can also reveal underutilization, or they may misread the question as being about data protection.
✗Virtual network peeringWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Virtual network peering connects virtual networks for traffic routing, but it does not analyze VM utilization or provide cost/security recommendations.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A question asks: 'You need to enable low-latency communication between two virtual networks in different Azure regions. Which solution should you use?'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse network-related services with optimization tools, or think peering can somehow monitor and advise on VM performance.
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?”
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Managed Identities for Azure Resources
Key term
Azure Advisor
Azure Advisor is a free, personalized cloud consultant that continuously analyzes your Azure resources and provides best practice recommendations to optimize for reliability, security, performance, operational excellence, and cost.
Key term
Security posture
An organization's overall cybersecurity strength, including policies, controls, and readiness to defend against and respond to threats.
About these practice questions
One of 1,049 original AZ-104 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.