AZ-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Question
A company is planning to migrate its on-premises workloads to Azure. The IT team is concerned about the cost of maintaining physical servers, power, and cooling in their data center. They want to understand how moving to Azure changes their operational expenses. Which cloud benefit directly addresses the reduction of these physical infrastructure costs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse the broader cost benefits of cloud with the specific shift from capital to operational expenditure that eliminates physical infrastructure ownership costs.
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
✓
Operational expenditure (OpEx) model
The scenario describes a company wanting to reduce costs associated with owning and maintaining physical servers, power, and cooling. Adopting an operational expenditure model with Azure means they no longer purchase and maintain that hardware; instead, they pay for what they use. This directly addresses the reduction of physical infrastructure costs, unlike high availability, elasticity, or economies of scale, which focus on uptime, scaling, or provider cost advantages respectively.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Economies of scale
Why it's wrong here
Economies of scale in cloud computing refer to the cost advantages that cloud providers achieve by purchasing hardware and resources in massive quantities, passing savings to customers. While this can lower per-unit costs, it does not directly address the elimination of the customer's own physical infrastructure expenses. The scenario emphasizes the reduction of the company's operational expenses related to maintaining their own data center.
- ✗
Elasticity
Why it's wrong here
Elasticity is the ability to automatically scale resources up or down based on demand. It helps match capacity to workload fluctuations, which can indirectly save costs by avoiding overprovisioning. However, the primary concern in the scenario is the fixed costs of maintaining physical infrastructure, not dynamic scaling. Elasticity does not directly eliminate the need for physical servers, power, and cooling.
- ✗
High availability
Why it's wrong here
High availability refers to the ability of a system to remain operational and accessible for a high percentage of time, often achieved through redundancy and failover mechanisms. While important, it does not directly address the reduction of physical infrastructure costs such as servers, power, and cooling. The scenario focuses on cost savings from eliminating on-premises hardware, not on uptime guarantees.
- ✓
Operational expenditure (OpEx) model
Why this is correct
Moving to Azure shifts costs from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx). Instead of investing in physical servers, power, and cooling, the company pays for cloud services on a consumption basis. This directly reduces the costs associated with maintaining physical infrastructure, as the cloud provider handles those responsibilities. The OpEx model aligns with the scenario's goal of reducing operational expenses.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Fault Tolerance vs High Availability
Key term
Elasticity
Elasticity is the ability of a cloud system to automatically add or remove computing resources (like servers, storage, or bandwidth) in response to real-time changes in demand.
Key term
High availability
High availability is a system design approach that aims to keep applications and services operational and accessible with minimal downtime, even when some components fail.
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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
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.