Question 285 of 981
AZ-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Question
What does 'geo-distribution' mean in cloud computing?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse geo-distribution with other cloud concepts like load balancing (Option C) or high availability within a single region (Option A), leading candidates to pick a technically valid but incorrect definition.
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
✓
Deploying applications and data across multiple geographic locations worldwide
Geo-distribution in cloud computing refers to deploying applications, data, and services across multiple geographically separated data centers or regions. This ensures low latency for users worldwide, improves availability through redundancy, and supports disaster recovery by isolating failures to a single region. Azure implements this through paired regions and traffic routing policies like performance-based routing in Azure Traffic Manager.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Distributing compute resources across multiple virtual machines in a single data center
Why it's wrong here
Distributing compute resources across multiple virtual machines in a single data center describes an availability set or virtual machine scale set within one Azure region or availability zone. That design provides high availability against hardware failures or updates within the same physical site, but it does not achieve geographic dispersion. Geo-distribution specifically requires deploying across distinct geographic locations, not just multiple VMs in a single data center.
- ✓
Deploying applications and data across multiple geographic locations worldwide
Why this is correct
Deploying applications and data across multiple geographic locations worldwide is the precise definition of geo-distribution. It places workloads in multiple Azure regions, such as East US and North Europe, to achieve global reach, reduce latency for distributed users, and provide disaster recovery through regional redundancy. This also helps meet data residency and compliance requirements that mandate where data is stored.
- ✗
Routing network traffic to the fastest available server
Why it's wrong here
Routing network traffic to the fastest available server describes traffic manager or load-balancing functionality, such as Azure Traffic Manager or Application Gateway with latency-based routing. While this improves performance by directing users to a nearby healthy endpoint, it does not inherently copy or place applications and data across geographic regions. Geo-distribution is a deployment architecture decision, not a traffic-routing mechanism.
- ✗
Encrypting data before sending it over the network
Why it's wrong here
Encrypting data before sending it over the network is a security control, commonly implemented with TLS/HTTPS or Azure Storage service encryption, to protect data in transit from eavesdropping. This measure addresses confidentiality and integrity but has no relationship to the geographic placement of workloads. Geo-distribution is about physical resource location across the globe, not about data protection techniques.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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