Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company deploys three Azure virtual machines (VMs) that host a critical line-of-business application. All three VMs are located in the same Azure region. The company notices that during planned maintenance events triggered by the Azure platform, such as host OS updates, all three VMs are updated simultaneously, causing the application to become unavailable. The company requires that during such maintenance, at least two VMs remain running to preserve application uptime. Which Azure feature should the company implement to logically group the VMs and ensure they are updated in separate batches?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
Azure Availability Zone
Availability Zones protect against an entire datacenter outage within a region by placing VMs in physically separate zones, but they do not control the sequencing of updates during planned maintenance. Zonal VMs are still subject to individual zone updates. Therefore, this does not guarantee that VMs are updated in separate batches.
B
Best answer
Azure Availability Set
Availability Sets logically group VMs into update domains and fault domains. Update domains ensure that only a subset of VMs is taken offline during planned Azure platform maintenance, preventing simultaneous downtime. Fault domains distribute VMs across separate hardware racks to guard against local hardware failures. This meets the requirement of keeping at least two VMs running during updates.
C
Distractor review
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set
Virtual Machine Scale Sets are primarily used to automatically scale the number of VM instances based on demand. While they do support update domains for rolling upgrades, they introduce unnecessary complexity for a fixed set of three VMs that only need grouping for high availability. An Availability Set is the simpler, appropriate solution.
D
Distractor review
Azure Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery is a disaster recovery service that replicates workloads to a secondary region to protect against region-wide outages. It does not address planned maintenance events within the primary region and cannot ensure that VMs are updated in separate batches.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer is building a serverless application that requires integration with an on-premises SQL Server database for real-time data processing. The on-premises network is connected to Azure via a site-to-site VPN. Which Azure service would allow the function to securely access the on-premises database without exposing it to the public internet?
Question 2
A solutions architect is designing a storage solution for a large media company. The company needs to store video files that are accessed infrequently but must be retained for several years for compliance. Which two Azure storage options meet these requirements? (Select two.)
Question 3
A company deploys a multi-tier application using Azure virtual machines. The web tier VMs must be evenly distributed across two distinct data centers within an Azure region to avoid a single point of failure from an infrastructure outage. Which Azure construct should they use to meet this requirement?
Question 4
A company wants to enforce a set of security policies across all their Azure subscriptions. They have created several individual policy definitions. Which Azure construct should they use to group these policies together and assign them as a single package?
Question 5
A company deploys a line-of-business application on an Azure virtual machine. The IT team wants to ensure the application remains secure. According to the shared responsibility model, which of the following security tasks is the sole responsibility of the customer (the company)?
Question 6
A company develops a web API that runs on Azure App Service. The development team wants to deploy a new version of the API to a staging environment, run integration tests against it, and then gradually shift production traffic to the new version. If any issues are detected, they want to immediately roll back to the previous version without redeploying. Which Azure App Service feature should the team use to meet these requirements?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-900 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Availability Set — Azure Availability Sets provide update domains that ensure VMs are not all rebooted at the same time during planned platform maintenance. By placing VMs in an availability set, they are distributed across up to 20 update domains, so during a host OS update, only one update domain is taken offline at a time. This maintains the required availability. Availability Zones protect against complete datacenter failures but do not manage update ordering within a region. Virtual Machine Scale Sets are designed for auto-scaling across instances but also use update domains; however, they are not the simplest solution for a fixed set of three VMs that just need grouping. Azure Site Recovery is used for disaster recovery to another region, not for planned maintenance within the same region.
What should I do if I get this AZ-900 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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