Question 50 of 1,031

Describe Azure management and governance →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is Azure role-based access control (RBAC). This is the correct choice because RBAC enables you to restrict VM creation to a specific Azure AD group by assigning the 'Virtual Machine Contributor' role to the 'VM Operators' group at the subscription scope, while removing or denying that permission from all other principals, including subscription Owners. On the AZ-900 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how RBAC provides fine-grained, role-based permission management, and it often appears as a trick question where candidates mistakenly choose Azure Policy or management groups. The key trap is that Azure Policy enforces compliance rules on existing resources, not who can create them—that is RBAC’s job. A helpful memory tip: think of RBAC as the "who can do what" service, while Azure Policy is the "what must be true" service.

AZ-900 Describe Azure management and governance Practice Question

This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe azure management and governance. 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 has a single Azure subscription that contains multiple resource groups for different departments. The security team needs to ensure that only members of the 'VM Operators' Azure Active Directory group can create virtual machines in the subscription. All other users, including subscription Owners, must be blocked from creating virtual machines. Which Azure feature should the security team use to enforce this requirement?

Question 1mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A
Azure Policy with a deny effect
Why wrong: Incorrect. Azure Policy with a deny effect can block resource creation based on resource properties (e.g., resource type, location, tags) but not based on the identity of the user performing the action. Policy does not inspect the user's group membership; it evaluates the resource properties at creation time.
B
Azure role-based access control (RBAC)
Correct. RBAC enables granular access management by assigning roles that include specific permissions (such as Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write) to users or groups. By ensuring only the 'VM Operators' group has a role that allows creating VMs, and by using a deny assignment to block all others, the security team can enforce the requirement.
C
Azure Resource Lock at the subscription level
Why wrong: Incorrect. A resource lock prevents resources from being deleted or modified, but it does not block the creation of new resources. Additionally, locks affect all users equally and cannot be scoped to specific user groups.
D
Azure Blueprints
Why wrong: Incorrect. Azure Blueprints is used to define and deploy a repeatable set of Azure resources and policies (e.g., ARM templates, RBAC assignments, policy assignments) for creating consistent environments. It does not enforce runtime permissions after deployment; it can assign RBAC roles, but the enforcement of who can create VMs is done by RBAC itself, not by Blueprints.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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 role-based access control (RBAC)

Azure RBAC allows you to assign specific roles (like 'Virtual Machine Contributor') to a security principal (e.g., the 'VM Operators' group) at a scope (the subscription). By granting the 'Virtual Machine Contributor' role only to the 'VM Operators' group and removing any built-in roles that allow VM creation from other users (including Owners), you can ensure that only that group can create VMs. This is the correct mechanism because RBAC is designed for fine-grained, role-based permission management.

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 Policy with a deny effect
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Azure Policy with a deny effect can block resource creation based on resource properties (e.g., resource type, location, tags) but not based on the identity of the user performing the action. Policy does not inspect the user's group membership; it evaluates the resource properties at creation time.
✓
Azure role-based access control (RBAC)
Why this is correct
Correct. RBAC enables granular access management by assigning roles that include specific permissions (such as Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write) to users or groups. By ensuring only the 'VM Operators' group has a role that allows creating VMs, and by using a deny assignment to block all others, the security team can enforce the requirement.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Azure Resource Lock at the subscription level
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. A resource lock prevents resources from being deleted or modified, but it does not block the creation of new resources. Additionally, locks affect all users equally and cannot be scoped to specific user groups.
✗
Azure Blueprints
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Azure Blueprints is used to define and deploy a repeatable set of Azure resources and policies (e.g., ARM templates, RBAC assignments, policy assignments) for creating consistent environments. It does not enforce runtime permissions after deployment; it can assign RBAC roles, but the enforcement of who can create VMs is done by RBAC itself, not by Blueprints.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Policy (which controls resource properties and compliance) with Azure RBAC (which controls user permissions and actions), leading them to select Policy when the requirement is about identity-based access control.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, Azure RBAC uses Azure AD as the identity provider and evaluates role assignments at the scope (management group, subscription, resource group, or resource) using an allow model. Even a Subscription Owner can have their effective permissions reduced by a custom role that explicitly denies VM creation, but the standard approach is to assign the 'Virtual Machine Contributor' role to the desired group and remove the 'Owner' role from users who should not create VMs. In a real-world scenario, you might combine RBAC with Azure Policy to both restrict who can create VMs and enforce that those VMs meet specific configuration rules.

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

A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.

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 management and governance — This question tests Describe Azure management and governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Azure role-based access control (RBAC) — Azure RBAC allows you to assign specific roles (like 'Virtual Machine Contributor') to a security principal (e.g., the 'VM Operators' group) at a scope (the subscription). By granting the 'Virtual Machine Contributor' role only to the 'VM Operators' group and removing any built-in roles that allow VM creation from other users (including Owners), you can ensure that only that group can create VMs. This is the correct mechanism because RBAC is designed for fine-grained, role-based permission management.

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.

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