The answer is Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is correct because an SLA is a formal, published commitment from Microsoft that defines a specific uptime percentage—in this case, 99.95% for Virtual Machines in an Availability Set—and includes a financial remedy, such as service credits, if that commitment is not met. On the AZ-900 exam, this concept tests your ability to distinguish between an SLA, a Service Level Objective (SLO), and a Service Level Indicator (SLI); the key trap is confusing an SLA with an SLO, since an SLO is an internal target without contractual penalties, while an SLA is a binding promise with compensation. Remember that an SLA always includes a “remedy” or “credit” clause, whereas an SLO is just a goal. For a quick memory tip: think of the “A” in SLA as standing for “Agreement with a remedy,” while the “O” in SLO stands for “Objective without obligation.”
AZ-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Question
This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe cloud concepts. 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.
An Azure service guarantees 99.95% uptime for virtual machines deployed with two or more instances in an availability set. If the monthly uptime falls below this percentage, customers can receive a service credit. What does this guarantee represent?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
This guarantee is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) because it is a formal, published commitment from Microsoft regarding the uptime percentage (99.95%) for a specific Azure service (Virtual Machines in an Availability Set), and it includes a financial remedy (service credits) if the commitment is not met. SLAs are contractual agreements that define the level of service a customer can expect and the compensation for failures.
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.
✓
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Why this is correct
Correct. An SLA outlines guaranteed service levels and compensation for non-compliance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Service Level Objective (SLO)
Why it's wrong here
An SLO is a target within an SLA, but the overall guarantee with credits is the SLA itself.
✗
Service Level Indicator (SLI)
Why it's wrong here
An SLI is a measurement like actual uptime percentage, not the agreement.
✗
Service Health
Why it's wrong here
Service Health provides information about ongoing issues, not a contractual guarantee with credits.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse a formal, financially-backed SLA with an internal SLO, mistakenly thinking any published uptime number is automatically an SLO, when in fact the presence of a service credit mechanism is the key differentiator for an SLA.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Azure SLAs are backed by specific monitoring and credit calculation mechanisms. For a Virtual Machine SLA, the monthly uptime percentage is calculated based on the total minutes the VM instances are unavailable (as defined by Azure's internal health probes) divided by total minutes in the month. The 99.95% SLA for two or more instances in an Availability Set accounts for the fact that the VMs are placed in separate fault domains and update domains, ensuring that planned maintenance or a hardware failure in one rack does not take all instances offline simultaneously. A real-world scenario: if a single VM instance fails, the other instance continues serving traffic, but if both fail due to a rare, correlated failure (e.g., a regional power outage), the SLA may not apply because the failure might be outside Azure's control (force majeure).
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-900 question in full detail.
Describe cloud concepts — This question tests Describe cloud concepts — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Service Level Agreement (SLA) — This guarantee is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) because it is a formal, published commitment from Microsoft regarding the uptime percentage (99.95%) for a specific Azure service (Virtual Machines in an Availability Set), and it includes a financial remedy (service credits) if the commitment is not met. SLAs are contractual agreements that define the level of service a customer can expect and the compensation for failures.
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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Question Discussion
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