Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company plans to deploy a critical application across two Azure regions for disaster recovery. The compliance team requires that planned maintenance updates (such as OS patches to the underlying Azure infrastructure) must never be applied to both regions at the same time. The company also needs the data stored in the primary region to be automatically replicated to the secondary region. Which Azure architecture feature should the company rely on to meet the requirement of non-simultaneous updates?
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
Availability Zones
Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within a single Azure region. They protect against datacenter failures, not against region-wide updates. They do not span multiple regions, so they cannot guarantee non-simultaneous updates across different regions.
B
Best answer
Region Pairs
Correct. Each Azure region is paired with another region in the same geography (e.g., East US with West US). Microsoft serializes platform updates across the pair, so only one region in the pair receives updates at a time. This supports disaster recovery and meets the compliance requirement.
C
Distractor review
Azure Resource Manager
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the management layer for deploying and managing resources in Azure. It does not control the sequencing of infrastructure updates across regions, nor does it handle data replication.
D
Distractor review
Azure Traffic Manager
Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer that directs incoming traffic to endpoints in different regions. It does not provide any guarantee about the timing of platform updates or data replication between regions.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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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?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Region Pairs — Azure region pairs are designed to ensure that planned updates are rolled out sequentially across the pair, so only one region is updated at a time. This isolation helps prevent simultaneous failures and is a key architectural feature for disaster recovery. Data can be replicated between paired regions using options like geo-redundant storage (GRS) or geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS).
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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