AZ-900 Describe Azure management and governance Practice Question
This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe azure management and governance. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 needs to grant a group of users the ability to restart and start/stop virtual machines, but not to create or delete them. They want to assign this permission at the resource group level. What should they do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a custom role with the required actions
Option B is correct because Azure's built-in roles do not provide a granular permission set that allows restarting and starting/stopping VMs while explicitly denying creation and deletion. A custom role must be created with specific actions such as 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action', 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/restart/action', and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/deallocate/action', and exclude actions like 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write' and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/delete'. This custom role can then be assigned at the resource group scope to grant the precise permissions required.
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.
✗
Assign the built-in Contributor role
Why it's wrong here
Contributor allows full management of resources, including creation and deletion.
✓
Create a custom role with the required actions
Why this is correct
A custom role can include just the 'Virtual Machine Contributor' or specific actions like start, restart, and deallocate.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Assign the built-in Virtual Machine Contributor role
Why it's wrong here
Virtual Machine Contributor allows managing VMs but also permissions to create and delete them.
✗
Use Azure Policy to restrict operations
Why it's wrong here
Azure Policy enforces compliance rules, not granular user permissions.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume the Virtual Machine Contributor role (Option C) is sufficient for start/stop operations, but they overlook that it also includes write permissions that allow VM creation and deletion, which violates the requirement to restrict those actions.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure RBAC custom roles are defined using a JSON structure with 'Actions', 'NotActions', 'DataActions', and 'AssignableScopes'. For this scenario, the custom role would include 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action', 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/restart/action', and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/deallocate/action' in the 'Actions' array, and explicitly exclude 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write' and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/delete' via 'NotActions' to prevent creation and deletion. A subtle behavior is that 'NotActions' are subtracted from 'Actions', so if a parent scope grants broader permissions, the custom role's exclusions may not fully restrict if the user has another role assignment. Real-world scenarios often require custom roles for operators who need to manage VM lifecycle without risking infrastructure changes.
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 company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-900 question in full detail.
Describe Azure management and governance — This question tests Describe Azure management and governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a custom role with the required actions — Option B is correct because Azure's built-in roles do not provide a granular permission set that allows restarting and starting/stopping VMs while explicitly denying creation and deletion. A custom role must be created with specific actions such as 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action', 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/restart/action', and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/deallocate/action', and exclude actions like 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write' and 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/delete'. This custom role can then be assigned at the resource group scope to grant the precise permissions required.
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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Question Discussion
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