AZ-204 Develop for Azure storage Practice Question
An application stores customer invoices in Azure Blob Storage. Deleted blobs must be recoverable for 14 days. What should be enabled?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse soft delete (which recovers deleted blobs) with immutable storage (which prevents deletion or modification) or access tiers (which affect storage cost and retrieval speed, not recovery).
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
✓
Blob soft delete with a 14-day retention period
Blob soft delete protects against accidental deletion by retaining deleted blobs for a specified retention period. Enabling it with a 14-day retention period ensures that deleted invoices remain recoverable for exactly 14 days, meeting the requirement without additional cost or complexity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Blob soft delete with a 14-day retention period
Why this is correct
Blob soft delete specifically addresses accidental deletion or overwrites by retaining deleted or overwritten blobs in a soft-deleted state for a user-defined period. Configuring a 14-day retention ensures that customer invoices, if accidentally deleted, can be restored to their previous state at any point within those two weeks. This feature provides a robust and straightforward recovery mechanism, making it the primary Azure Storage data protection feature for this scenario.
- ✗
Archive access tier
Why it's wrong here
The Archive access tier is designed for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements, offering the lowest storage cost for long-term retention. While it's a cost-effective solution for inactive data, its primary function is to optimize storage expenses, not to provide a mechanism for recovering accidentally deleted blobs. Data in the Archive tier must be rehydrated to be accessed, and it does not inherently protect against deletion or offer a recovery path for deleted items.
- ✗
Static website hosting
Why it's wrong here
Static website hosting in Azure Blob Storage enables serving static web content directly from a storage container, typically for single-page applications or simple websites. Its purpose is to provide a low-cost, scalable hosting solution for web assets, effectively transforming a storage account into a web server. This feature is entirely unrelated to data protection or the recovery of deleted blobs, as it focuses solely on content delivery and not on preserving deleted data.
- ✗
Immutable blob legal hold
Why it's wrong here
An immutable blob legal hold prevents blobs from being modified or deleted for a specified duration or until the hold is explicitly removed. While it effectively protects against *intentional* or *accidental* deletion by preventing the operation in the first place, it does not provide a recovery mechanism for items that *have already been deleted* (e.g., if the hold was not in place or expired). Its primary use is for compliance and regulatory requirements, ensuring data integrity rather than offering a post-deletion recovery path.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 881 original AZ-204 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-204 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-204 exam.