AZ-900 Describe Azure management and governance Practice Question
A company has several Azure subscriptions that contain hundreds of virtual machines. A new corporate standard requires that all VMs must use Azure managed disks instead of unmanaged disks. The governance team needs to automatically identify existing VMs with unmanaged disks and convert them to managed disks without requiring manual intervention for each VM. The team also wants to ensure that any new VMs created in the future automatically use managed disks. Which Azure feature should they use to meet both requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Azure Policy's auditing capabilities (e.g., 'AuditIfNotExists') with its remediation capabilities, assuming that simply identifying non-compliant resources is sufficient, but the question explicitly requires automatic conversion, which only the DeployIfNotExists effect with remediation can achieve.
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 Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect (with remediation)
Azure Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect can automatically identify VMs using unmanaged disks and, when combined with remediation tasks, convert them to managed disks without manual intervention. It also enforces that any new VMs are created with managed disks by evaluating and automatically deploying the required configuration at creation time. This meets both the identification/conversion of existing resources and the enforcement for future resources.
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 Blueprints
Why it's wrong here
Azure Blueprints can define a repeatable set of Azure resources and policies that implement and adhere to standards. However, Blueprints do not automatically remediate existing non-compliant resources; they are primarily used to orchestrate deployment of a new environment.
When this WOULD be correct
An exam scenario where a company needs to deploy a standardized environment (e.g., a set of VMs, networking, and policies) consistently across multiple subscriptions, ensuring all resources follow a template, and the team wants to version and update the entire environment as a single unit.
- ✓
Azure Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect (with remediation)
Why this is correct
Azure Policy with the 'DeployIfNotExists' effect automatically evaluates existing resources for compliance. When a non-compliant resource is found, a remediation task can execute a deployment to bring the resource into compliance (e.g., convert unmanaged disks to managed disks). The policy also applies to new resources, ensuring all future VMs use managed disks.
- ✗
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
Why it's wrong here
ARM templates are JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files that define the infrastructure and configuration for your Azure solution. They are used for declarative deployments but do not provide ongoing policy enforcement or automatic remediation of existing resources.
When this WOULD be correct
An exam scenario where the question asks: 'A company needs to deploy a standardized set of Azure resources, including VMs with managed disks, across multiple subscriptions with consistent configuration. Which feature should they use?' In that case, ARM templates would be correct for defining and deploying the infrastructure consistently.
- ✗
Azure Cost Management + Budgets
Why it's wrong here
Azure Cost Management + Budgets is a governance service focused on financial operations: it tracks spending, provides cost analysis, and triggers budget alerts when thresholds are exceeded. However, it does not evaluate resource configuration, detect non-compliant resources like unmanaged disks, or execute Azure Resource Manager deployments to remediate existing VMs. It lacks the compliance evaluation and remediation capabilities required to enforce managed disk usage across hundreds of existing virtual machines, making it purely a cost monitoring and optimization tool rather than a configuration enforcement mechanism.
When this WOULD be correct
A company needs to track and reduce spending on Azure resources. They want to set spending limits and receive alerts when costs exceed thresholds. Azure Cost Management + Budgets would be the correct feature to create budgets, monitor costs, and trigger notifications or automation based on budget conditions.
Option-by-option analysis
Why each answer is right or wrong
Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The AZ-900 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.
✓Azure Policy with the DeployIfNotExists effect (with remediation)Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Azure Policy with the 'DeployIfNotExists' effect automatically evaluates existing resources for compliance. When a non-compliant resource is found, a remediation task can execute a deployment to bring the resource into compliance (e.g., convert unmanaged disks to managed disks). The policy also applies to new resources, ensuring all future VMs use managed disks.
✗Azure BlueprintsWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Blueprints can define a set of Azure resources and policies, but it cannot automatically identify and remediate existing VMs with unmanaged disks. It is used for orchestrating deployments, not for ongoing compliance enforcement or automatic conversion of existing resources.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An exam scenario where a company needs to deploy a standardized environment (e.g., a set of VMs, networking, and policies) consistently across multiple subscriptions, ensuring all resources follow a template, and the team wants to version and update the entire environment as a single unit.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse Blueprints with Policy because both are used for governance and compliance. Blueprints can include policy assignments, but they lack the automatic remediation capability for existing resources that DeployIfNotExists provides.
✗Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templatesWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
ARM templates are used for deploying infrastructure as code, not for automatically identifying and remediating existing non-compliant resources or enforcing policies on future resources. They require manual execution or integration into a deployment pipeline, lacking the continuous compliance enforcement and automatic remediation capabilities of Azure Policy.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
An exam scenario where the question asks: 'A company needs to deploy a standardized set of Azure resources, including VMs with managed disks, across multiple subscriptions with consistent configuration. Which feature should they use?' In that case, ARM templates would be correct for defining and deploying the infrastructure consistently.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think ARM templates can enforce standards because they define resource configurations, but they overlook that templates are not a governance tool for ongoing compliance or automatic remediation of existing resources.
✗Azure Cost Management + BudgetsWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Azure Cost Management + Budgets is used for monitoring and controlling cloud spending, not for enforcing configuration standards like requiring managed disks on VMs. It cannot automatically identify or convert unmanaged disks, nor enforce managed disk usage on new VMs.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company needs to track and reduce spending on Azure resources. They want to set spending limits and receive alerts when costs exceed thresholds. Azure Cost Management + Budgets would be the correct feature to create budgets, monitor costs, and trigger notifications or automation based on budget conditions.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may mistakenly think Cost Management can enforce compliance because it provides visibility and alerts, but it lacks the policy enforcement and remediation capabilities needed for configuration standards.
Analysis generated from the official AZ-900blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Cost Management and Billing
Key term
Governance
Governance is the framework of policies, processes, and controls that ensures IT activities align with business goals and comply with regulations.
Key term
Azure Policy
Azure Policy is a service in Microsoft Azure that lets you create, assign, and manage rules to ensure your resources stay compliant with your company standards and service-level agreements.
About these practice questions
This AZ-900 question is part of Courseiva's 981-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.