- A
Azure Load Balancer
Correct. Azure Load Balancer distributes inbound traffic at the transport layer (TCP/UDP) to healthy VM instances, supporting availability zones within a region.
- B
Azure Application Gateway
Why wrong: Incorrect. Application Gateway is a Layer 7 load balancer for HTTP/S traffic and includes web application firewall features, but is not the simplest choice for basic traffic distribution across zones.
- C
Azure Traffic Manager
Why wrong: Incorrect. Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic router that directs traffic across regions, not within a single region.
- D
Azure Front Door
Why wrong: Incorrect. Front Door is a global load balancer and web application firewall that optimizes traffic across regions, not suitable for intra-region distribution.
AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services Practice Question
This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe azure architecture and services. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company deploys a web application on Azure Virtual Machines across multiple availability zones within a single region. They need to distribute incoming network traffic across these VM instances to ensure high availability. Which Azure service should they use?
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 Load Balancer
Azure Load Balancer is the correct choice because it operates at Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) and distributes incoming traffic across healthy virtual machines within a single region, including across availability zones. It provides high availability by automatically routing traffic only to healthy VM instances based on health probes, and it supports both public and internal load balancing scenarios.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 Load Balancer
Why this is correct
Correct. Azure Load Balancer distributes inbound traffic at the transport layer (TCP/UDP) to healthy VM instances, supporting availability zones within a region.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Azure Application Gateway
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Application Gateway is a Layer 7 load balancer for HTTP/S traffic and includes web application firewall features, but is not the simplest choice for basic traffic distribution across zones.
- ✗
Azure Traffic Manager
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic router that directs traffic across regions, not within a single region.
- ✗
Azure Front Door
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Front Door is a global load balancer and web application firewall that optimizes traffic across regions, not suitable for intra-region distribution.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Load Balancer (Layer 4, regional) with Azure Traffic Manager (DNS-based, global) or Azure Application Gateway (Layer 7, web-specific), failing to recognize that the requirement is for distributing traffic across VMs within a single region across availability zones.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Load Balancer uses a five-tuple hash (source IP, source port, destination IP, destination port, protocol) to map traffic to backend VMs, ensuring session persistence for the same flow. Health probes (HTTP, TCP, or HTTPS) are sent to each VM at a configurable interval (default 5 seconds); if a VM fails to respond within the timeout (default 30 seconds), it is removed from the backend pool. In a cross-zone deployment, the load balancer automatically distributes traffic across VMs in different availability zones, but it does not provide zone-redundant frontend IP unless configured as zone-redundant.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-900 question test?
Describe Azure architecture and services — This question tests Describe Azure architecture and services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Load Balancer — Azure Load Balancer is the correct choice because it operates at Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) and distributes incoming traffic across healthy virtual machines within a single region, including across availability zones. It provides high availability by automatically routing traffic only to healthy VM instances based on health probes, and it supports both public and internal load balancing scenarios.
What should I do if I get this AZ-900 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This AZ-900 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-900 exam.
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