AZ-204 Practice Question: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions
Your application running on Azure App Service is experiencing intermittent timeouts. You have configured Application Insights to collect telemetry. Which metric should you analyze in the Azure portal to identify the slowest dependencies?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is choosing Request Duration because it sounds like the overall slowness metric; the exam expects you to know that dependency-level telemetry is required to isolate external call latency.
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
✓
Dependency Duration
Dependency Duration in Application Insights measures the time taken by outbound calls from your application to external dependencies such as SQL databases, HTTP endpoints, and Azure services. Analyzing this metric (often in the Application Map or Performance blade) lets you pinpoint which dependency is causing the intermittent timeouts. Request Duration measures the overall server response time, which includes dependency time but does not isolate the slow dependency.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Request Duration
Why it's wrong here
Request Duration aggregates total server response time for inbound requests, so a slow dependency is hidden inside the overall figure without naming it. It is tempting because timeouts appear as long requests, yet it is the correct choice for diagnosing slow endpoints, not dependencies.
- ✗
Failed Requests
Why it's wrong here
Failed Requests counts requests returning error codes, showing that timeouts occur but not which dependency consumed the time. It is tempting because timeouts surface as failures, yet it is the right metric for tracking error rates and availability, not for isolating slow downstream calls.
- ✓
Dependency Duration
Why this is correct
Dependency Duration records the elapsed time of each outbound call the app makes, such as to SQL Database or an HTTP endpoint, so the slowest dependency is identified directly. It isolates downstream latency from server response time, pinpointing which external call causes the intermittent timeouts.
- ✗
Availability
Why it's wrong here
Availability measures uptime percentage of the app, not dependency latency, so it cannot reveal which downstream call is slow. It is tempting because timeouts look like outages, but it belongs to SLA monitoring; dependency duration requires the dependencies view instead.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Service Bus Sessions and Duplicate Detection
Key term
Application Insights
Application Insights is an Azure monitoring service that helps developers detect, diagnose, and understand issues in live web applications by collecting telemetry data like requests, exceptions, and performance counters.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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