Question 890 of 1,031

Describe Azure architecture and services →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services Practice Question

This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe azure architecture and services. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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.

A company plans to deploy a web application on Azure Virtual Machines. The solution must remain available even if a physical datacenter in the region experiences a complete outage. The company wants to use the simplest and most cost-effective architecture that meets this requirement within a single Azure region. What should the company configure?

Question 1mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A
Deploy VMs in an Availability Set across multiple fault domains.
Why wrong: An Availability Set protects against hardware failures and planned maintenance within a single datacenter by distributing VMs across fault and update domains, but it does not provide resilience against a complete datacenter outage.
B
Deploy VMs in an Availability Zone across multiple zones.
Availability Zones are unique physical locations within an Azure region. Each zone has independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across two or more zones ensures the application remains available even if one entire datacenter fails.
C
Deploy VMs in a single scale set with autoscale.
Why wrong: A virtual machine scale set with autoscaling adjusts the number of VM instances based on demand (e.g., CPU load). It does not protect against a datacenter failure because all instances are typically placed within the same datacenter unless explicitly configured across zones.
D
Deploy VMs in a virtual network with a VPN gateway to a secondary region.
Why wrong: Using a VPN gateway to connect to a secondary region implements a cross-region disaster recovery solution. This increases complexity and cost, and is not the simplest architecture for achieving availability within a single region.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

Deploy VMs in an Availability Zone across multiple zones.

Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across multiple zones protects against a single datacenter outage while remaining in one region, making it the simplest and most cost-effective solution for this requirement.

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.

✗
Deploy VMs in an Availability Set across multiple fault domains.
Why it's wrong here
An Availability Set protects against hardware failures and planned maintenance within a single datacenter by distributing VMs across fault and update domains, but it does not provide resilience against a complete datacenter outage.
✓
Deploy VMs in an Availability Zone across multiple zones.
Why this is correct
Availability Zones are unique physical locations within an Azure region. Each zone has independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across two or more zones ensures the application remains available even if one entire datacenter fails.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Deploy VMs in a single scale set with autoscale.
Why it's wrong here
A virtual machine scale set with autoscaling adjusts the number of VM instances based on demand (e.g., CPU load). It does not protect against a datacenter failure because all instances are typically placed within the same datacenter unless explicitly configured across zones.
✗
Deploy VMs in a virtual network with a VPN gateway to a secondary region.
Why it's wrong here
Using a VPN gateway to connect to a secondary region implements a cross-region disaster recovery solution. This increases complexity and cost, and is not the simplest architecture for achieving availability within a single region.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse an Availability Set (which protects against rack-level failures) with an Availability Zone (which protects against datacenter-level failures), leading them to choose Option A when the question explicitly requires surviving a complete datacenter outage.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Azure Availability Zones offer a 99.99% SLA for VMs when two or more instances are deployed across zones, compared to 99.95% for Availability Sets. Each zone is a unique physical location with independent power, cooling, and networking, and zone-to-zone latency is typically under 2 ms within the same region. This architecture is ideal for applications that require high availability without the complexity and cost of geo-redundancy.

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

A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this AZ-900 question test?

Describe Azure architecture and services — This question tests Describe Azure architecture and services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Deploy VMs in an Availability Zone across multiple zones. — Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs across multiple zones protects against a single datacenter outage while remaining in one region, making it the simplest and most cost-effective solution for this requirement.

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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