Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company traditionally purchased physical servers and networking equipment every three years, paying the full cost upfront. They are now migrating their workloads to Azure virtual machines. The finance team wants to understand the primary financial benefit of the new cloud model. Which statement best describes this benefit?
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
The company can stop paying for electricity and cooling because Azure includes those costs in the monthly bill.
While Azure does include the cost of power and cooling in its service fees, this is a peripheral benefit. The fundamental financial shift is from upfront capital spending to variable operational spending, not just the elimination of utility costs.
B
Best answer
The company can replace large upfront capital expenditures with variable monthly payments based on actual usage.
This correctly describes the consumption-based model (OpEx) of cloud computing. Instead of buying hardware every few years, you pay only for what you use, which improves cash flow and aligns costs with business activity.
C
Distractor review
The company will pay a fixed monthly fee for each virtual machine, regardless of whether it is running or stopped.
Azure bills for VMs based on actual run time. A stopped (deallocated) VM incurs only storage costs, not compute charges. A fixed monthly fee per VM regardless of state is inaccurate.
D
Distractor review
The company can reduce its overall IT spending by 50% or more when moving to the cloud.
Cloud migration can reduce costs in some scenarios, but a guaranteed 50% reduction is unrealistic. The actual savings depend on workload optimization, reserved instances, and licensing. This statement presents an unsupported claim.
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.
Related practice questions
Related AZ-900 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
AZ-900 cloud concepts practice questions
Practise AZ-900 questions linked to AZ-900 cloud concepts.
AZ-900 Azure services practice questions
Practise AZ-900 questions linked to AZ-900 Azure services.
AZ-900 pricing and support practice questions
Practise AZ-900 questions linked to AZ-900 pricing and support.
AZ-900 security and compliance practice questions
Practise AZ-900 questions linked to AZ-900 security and compliance.
AZ-900 governance practice questions
Practise AZ-900 questions linked to AZ-900 governance.
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: The company can replace large upfront capital expenditures with variable monthly payments based on actual usage. — The primary financial benefit of migrating from on-premises to the cloud is shifting from a Capital Expenditure (CapEx) model to an Operational Expenditure (OpEx) model. In the cloud, you pay only for the resources you consume (e.g., compute time, storage), which reduces large upfront costs and provides better cost predictability and flexibility. Option B correctly describes this consumption-based pricing model. Option A is a secondary benefit of offloading infrastructure management but is not the primary financial change. Option C is incorrect because Azure virtual machines are billed per second while running; stopped VMs incur minimal charges for storage. Option D is misleading because cost reduction varies and is not guaranteed.
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.
Discussion
Loading comments…
Sign in to join the discussion.