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.
Which term describes the practice of deploying resources across multiple Azure availability zones to protect against datacenter-level failures?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Zone-redundant deployment
Zone-redundant deployment (B) is the correct term because it specifically refers to replicating resources across multiple Azure availability zones within a single Azure region. Availability zones are physically separate datacenters with independent power, cooling, and networking, so deploying across them protects against a single datacenter-level failure while keeping the application within the same low-latency region.
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.
✗
Geo-redundancy
Why it's wrong here
Geo-redundancy deploys across multiple regions — zone redundancy is within a single region across availability zones.
✓
Zone-redundant deployment
Why this is correct
Zone-redundant deployment spreads resources across availability zones within a region, protecting against datacenter failures.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Horizontal scaling
Why it's wrong here
Horizontal scaling adds instances for performance — it doesn't inherently provide zone-level resiliency.
✗
Disaster recovery
Why it's wrong here
Disaster recovery typically involves cross-region replication — zone redundancy is a within-region HA strategy.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse 'zone-redundant deployment' with 'geo-redundancy,' mistakenly thinking both protect against datacenter failures, but geo-redundancy is for region-level failures and involves higher latency, while zone-redundancy is for datacenter-level failures within the same region.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Each Azure availability zone is a unique physical location within an Azure region, with its own fault domain and update domain. When you deploy zone-redundant resources (e.g., zone-redundant storage or a zone-redundant virtual machine scale set), Azure automatically distributes replicas or instances across zones, ensuring that if one zone fails, the other zones continue operating. This design achieves a Service-Level Agreement (SLA) of up to 99.99% for certain services, such as zone-redundant virtual machines, by guaranteeing that at least one instance remains available.
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.
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: Zone-redundant deployment — Zone-redundant deployment (B) is the correct term because it specifically refers to replicating resources across multiple Azure availability zones within a single Azure region. Availability zones are physically separate datacenters with independent power, cooling, and networking, so deploying across them protects against a single datacenter-level failure while keeping the application within the same low-latency region.
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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