AZ-305 Practice Question: Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
Your organization is designing a monitoring solution for a critical application running on Azure VMs. You need to collect performance metrics and logs from the VMs and send them to a centralized Log Analytics workspace. You also need to visualize the data in near real-time. Which combination of services should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Azure Sentinel (a SIEM) with Azure Monitor (a general monitoring solution), leading candidates to select a security-focused tool for a performance monitoring requirement.
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 Monitor Agent and Azure Workbooks
Azure Monitor Agent is the current recommended agent for collecting performance metrics and logs from Azure VMs and sending them to a Log Analytics workspace. Azure Workbooks provide interactive, near real-time visualizations by querying the workspace data. This combination meets the requirements for centralized collection and visualization without unnecessary overhead.
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 Monitor Agent and Azure Workbooks
Why this is correct
Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) is the current, unified data collection agent for Azure Monitor, replacing the legacy Log Analytics and Diagnostics agents. It uses data collection rules (DCRs) to route VM telemetry into a Log Analytics workspace with low overhead and support for near real-time streaming. Azure Workbooks then provide interactive, customizable visualizations and queries over that data, making this combination ideal for a modern monitoring and visualization solution.
- ✗
Azure Diagnostics extension and VM Insights
Why it's wrong here
The Azure Diagnostics extension (WAD/LAD) is a legacy agent that primarily ships diagnostic data to Azure Storage or Event Hubs, not directly into Log Analytics for flexible querying in near real time. While VM Insights offers pre-built performance views, it relies on the current Azure Monitor Agent for data collection and its visualizations are fixed templates, not as customizable or query-driven as Workbooks. Combining a legacy extension with VM Insights therefore delivers an outdated, less flexible monitoring pipeline.
- ✗
Azure Monitor Agent and Azure Sentinel
Why it's wrong here
Azure Sentinel (now Microsoft Sentinel) is a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution focused on security information and event management, such as threat detection, investigations, and incident response. Pairing it with the Azure Monitor Agent would support security telemetry ingestion but does not provide performance-monitoring dashboards or near real-time operational visualizations. Sentinel is not a replacement for Workbooks when the goal is custom, interactive VM performance analytics.
- ✗
Log Analytics Agent and Azure Dashboards
Why it's wrong here
The Log Analytics Agent (MMA/OMS) is the legacy data collection agent that is being phased out in favor of Azure Monitor Agent, and it lacks the modern DCR-based configuration and streaming capabilities. Azure Dashboards are pin-based tiles that refresh on a timer and offer limited interactivity compared to Workbooks, making them less suitable for near real-time drilling into performance data. Relying on this legacy combination would produce a less maintainable and less flexible monitoring solution than the current recommended tooling.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 795 original AZ-305 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-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.