AZ-305 Practice Question: Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
Which THREE Azure services can be used to monitor the performance of a web application? (Choose three.)
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse governance tools like Azure Policy or security tools like Defender for Cloud with performance monitoring, but the exam specifically tests the distinction between monitoring (Application Insights, Metrics, Logs) and management/security services.
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
✓
Application Insights
Application Insights (B) is correct because it is the APM feature of Azure Monitor that automatically collects request rates, response times, failure rates, dependency calls, and server/client performance telemetry for web applications. Azure Monitor Metrics (C) is correct because it stores numeric time-series performance data such as CPU percentage, memory usage, request counts, and response times that can be charted and alerted on. Azure Monitor Logs (E) is correct because Log Analytics workspaces collect and query detailed telemetry (e.g., via KQL over AppRequests, Perf, and AppTraces tables) to analyze web app performance and trends. Azure Policy (A) is incorrect because it enforces governance and compliance rules on resources rather than monitoring runtime performance. Microsoft Defender for Cloud (D) is incorrect because it provides security posture management and threat protection, not application performance monitoring.
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 Policy
Why it's wrong here
Azure Policy evaluates and enforces resource configuration compliance; it does not ingest application telemetry such as response times or exception counts. It is tempting because it governs resources at scale, and would be correct when the goal is preventing non-compliant deployments rather than observing runtime performance.
- ✓
Application Insights
Why this is correct
Application Insights collects request rates, response times, dependency calls and failures through the SDK or auto-instrumentation, providing end-to-end telemetry for a web application. It satisfies the monitoring requirement by surfacing performance and availability data at the application layer.
- ✓
Azure Monitor Metrics
Why this is correct
Azure Monitor Metrics stores numeric time-series data such as CPU, memory and request counts emitted by Azure resources. It satisfies the monitoring requirement by providing platform-level performance metrics that can be charted, alerted on and analysed for a web application.
- ✗
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Why it's wrong here
Defender for Cloud assesses security posture and generates alerts; it does not collect request latency, failure rates or dependency metrics. It is tempting because it surfaces workload health and recommendations, and would be correct when the requirement is threat detection and regulatory compliance rather than application performance telemetry.
- ✓
Azure Monitor Logs
Why this is correct
Azure Monitor Logs ingests platform and application telemetry into a Log Analytics workspace, where KQL queries correlate request latency, failure rates and dependency performance. This satisfies the stem's monitoring requirement by providing the queryable data layer behind alerts and dashboards.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 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-305 exam.