AZ-104 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Practice Question
Your company wants to know when an Azure service outage in the region might affect subscribed resources, even if no metric threshold has been crossed yet. Which alert type should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse metric alerts (which require a threshold) with Service Health alerts (which are event-driven from Azure's own health signals), leading them to choose metric alerts when the question explicitly states 'no metric threshold has been crossed yet.'
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
✓
A Service Health alert
Service Health alerts are designed to notify you about Azure service incidents, maintenance, health advisories, and security advisories that may impact your subscribed resources. Unlike metric alerts, they trigger based on Azure's own health status rather than any metric threshold you configure, making them ideal for detecting region-wide outages before they affect your specific metrics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A metric alert
Why it's wrong here
Metric alerts in Azure Monitor trigger when a specific metric for a monitored resource crosses a threshold, such as CPU percentage or request latency. They are scoped to individual resources and require a continuously emitted metric signal; they do not receive broadcasts about Azure infrastructure outages. A service incident might indirectly affect metrics, but metric alerts cannot alert you on the official outage itself, and they fail to detect issues when no resource metric has been impacted yet.
When this WOULD be correct
A metric alert would be correct if the question asked: 'You need to be notified when the average CPU usage of a virtual machine exceeds 90% for 5 minutes.'
- ✓
A Service Health alert
Why this is correct
Service Health alerts are Azure Monitor alerts that subscribe to Azure Service Health notifications, including active service incidents, planned maintenance, and health advisories relevant to your subscription. You can filter by service, region, and event type, and deliver these alerts through email, SMS, webhook, or ITSM tools. This is the authoritative mechanism for being notified about Azure service outages because it directly consumes Microsoft's official health signals.
- ✗
A budget alert
Why it's wrong here
Budget alerts are part of Microsoft Cost Management and monitor your Azure spending against a defined budget threshold, triggering when actual or forecasted costs exceed that amount. They notify you only about cost overruns, not about the availability or health of Azure services. Since a service outage does not generate a cost metric signal, budget alerts cannot detect or inform you of a disruption.
When this WOULD be correct
When the question asks about configuring alerts to notify when spending exceeds a predefined budget amount or forecast, such as for cost management and governance.
- ✗
A boot diagnostics alert
Why it's wrong here
Boot diagnostics is an Azure VM feature that captures serial console output and screenshots to help you troubleshoot VMs that fail to boot. It does not monitor the status of Azure services and cannot proactively alert you to an outage in a service or region. While it aids in diagnosing individual VM startup issues, it lacks any integration with Service Health for incident notifications.
When this WOULD be correct
A boot diagnostics alert would be correct when the question asks: 'You need to be notified if a specific Azure VM fails to boot after a restart. Which alert type should you configure?'
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.
✓A Service Health alertCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
Service Health alerts are Azure Monitor alerts that subscribe to Azure Service Health notifications, including active service incidents, planned maintenance, and health advisories relevant to your subscription. You can filter by service, region, and event type, and deliver these alerts through email, SMS, webhook, or ITSM tools. This is the authoritative mechanism for being notified about Azure service outages because it directly consumes Microsoft's official health signals.
✗A metric alertWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A metric alert triggers based on a specific metric threshold (e.g., CPU > 80%). The question asks for alerts when an Azure service outage affects resources, even without any metric threshold being crossed. Metric alerts do not detect service health issues.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A metric alert would be correct if the question asked: 'You need to be notified when the average CPU usage of a virtual machine exceeds 90% for 5 minutes.'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates often associate all Azure alerts with metrics, but Service Health alerts are a separate category for platform-level issues, not resource-level metrics.
✗A budget alertWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
A budget alert monitors spending against cost thresholds, not service health or outages. It cannot detect Azure service outages affecting resources.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
When the question asks about configuring alerts to notify when spending exceeds a predefined budget amount or forecast, such as for cost management and governance.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse budget alerts with health alerts because both involve proactive notification, but they focus on different domains (cost vs. service health).
✗A boot diagnostics alertWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Boot diagnostics alerts monitor VM boot failures, not Azure service outages affecting subscribed resources. They are irrelevant to detecting region-wide service health issues.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A boot diagnostics alert would be correct when the question asks: 'You need to be notified if a specific Azure VM fails to boot after a restart. Which alert type should you configure?'
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse 'diagnostics' with 'health monitoring' and assume boot diagnostics can detect service outages, not realizing it is limited to VM boot issues.
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
Region
A region is a distinct geographic location where a cloud provider operates multiple data centers that are connected by low-latency networks and provide cloud services.
Key term
Security
Security in IT is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft.
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.