MS-900 Describe cloud concepts Practice Question
A company runs a legacy application that requires a fixed amount of dedicated hardware resources for compliance reasons. However, they want to benefit from cloud-based backup and disaster recovery to reduce on-premises hardware costs. Which cloud deployment model best aligns with this requirement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'hybrid cloud' with 'private cloud' because both involve on-premises resources, but the key differentiator is the use of public cloud services for backup/DR to reduce hardware costs, which only hybrid cloud enables.
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
✓
Hybrid cloud
Hybrid cloud is correct because it allows the company to keep the legacy application on dedicated on-premises hardware for compliance, while leveraging cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services (e.g., Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery) to reduce on-premises hardware costs. This model combines private cloud (or on-premises infrastructure) with public cloud resources, enabling data replication and failover to the cloud without migrating the application itself.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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Public cloud
Why it's wrong here
Public cloud operates on multi-tenant infrastructure where compute and storage are shared across customers, and resources are metered on demand. This model cannot guarantee a fixed set of dedicated hardware for a legacy application that may require persistent licensing tied to specific CPU cores or physical isolation for compliance. Additionally, moving such an app to public cloud without dedicated hosts would not reduce on-premises costs because the organization would still need to maintain its own environment to meet those requirements.
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Private cloud
Why it's wrong here
A private cloud is a single-tenant environment dedicated to one organization, but it still requires the organization to own or lease the physical hardware, often housed in its own data center. This means capital expenditure for servers, storage, networking, and ongoing maintenance remains on the organization's balance sheet, so it does not meaningfully reduce on-premises costs. In fact, a private cloud can be more expensive than traditional virtualization because of added orchestration and management layers.
- ✓
Hybrid cloud
Why this is correct
Hybrid cloud combines a private or on-premises environment with public cloud services, typically over a secure VPN or dedicated connection like Azure ExpressRoute. This lets the legacy application continue running in a dedicated private space with fixed resources, while backup, disaster recovery, or scale-out workloads are offloaded to the public cloud, decreasing the on-premises footprint. The resulting reduction in physical infrastructure, energy, and maintenance directly lowers on-premises cost while preserving the application's required isolation.
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Community cloud
Why it's wrong here
A community cloud is a shared platform used by several organizations with similar compliance or industry requirements, such as government agencies or healthcare providers. It does not provide a dedicated, fixed hardware allocation for a single organization's legacy application, nor does it combine private and public deployments. Therefore, it would not address the need for cost reduction through backup/DR in a public cloud, and it is not a suitable deployment model for this scenario.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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