Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A manufacturing company traditionally purchased and maintained its own servers, paying a large upfront capital expense (CapEx) for hardware that was expected to last five years. After migrating its workloads to Azure virtual machines, the company now receives a monthly invoice that reflects only the compute and storage resources actually consumed during that month. There are no upfront payments. This change in cost structure best illustrates which benefit of cloud computing?
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
Scalability to handle variable demand
Scalability is the ability to increase or decrease resources based on demand, which does not directly describe the change from upfront hardware purchases to monthly consumption-based billing.
B
Distractor review
High availability through geographic redundancy
High availability focuses on keeping applications and data accessible despite failures, not on the financial model of paying for only what you use.
C
Best answer
Consumption-based pricing model
This is the correct benefit. The cloud's consumption-based (pay-as-you-go) model eliminates large upfront capital expenses and replaces them with variable operational expenses based on actual resource usage.
D
Distractor review
Resource pooling through multi-tenancy
Resource pooling allows the provider to serve multiple customers from shared physical resources, which can lower costs but does not directly describe the shift from CapEx to OpEx in the customer's billing structure.
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.
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AZ-900 pricing and support practice questions
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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: Consumption-based pricing model — The scenario contrasts a traditional upfront capital expense (CapEx) model with the cloud's pay-as-you-go model, where costs are based on actual consumption with no upfront investment. This is known as the consumption-based pricing model, a key benefit of cloud computing. Scalability (option A) refers to the ability to adjust resources to meet demand, not the billing model. High availability (option B) concerns ensuring services remain operational, not cost structure. Resource pooling (option D) is about sharing infrastructure across multiple customers to achieve economies of scale, which is related but not primarily about the billing shift from CapEx to OpEx. Therefore, the correct answer is the consumption-based pricing model.
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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