Pass the Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate AZ-104 Questions and answers with CertsForce

In the scenario, storage1 is configured as StorageV2 with Hierarchical namespace = Yes, while storage2 is configured as StorageV2 with Hierarchical namespace = No.

From Microsoft’s Azure Storage Documentation and AZ-104 Study Guide, the following principles apply:

A hierarchical namespace (enabled when the storage account has Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 capabilities) allows the use of directories within containers to organize data.

The hierarchical namespace provides directory and file-level structure similar to a file system. This is supported only for blob containers, not for Azure Files.

Azure Files (file shares) do not depend on hierarchical namespaces and cannot have directories in the same way Data Lake Gen2 does — directories can exist inside the share but not in the blob container sense.

The planned change states that you must use directories whenever possible to organize content. Therefore, only storage accounts with hierarchical namespace enabled can use directory structures — that’s storage1.

In this case:

storage1 (Hierarchical namespace = Yes) → supports containers (like cont1) and file shares (like share1).

storage2 (Hierarchical namespace = No) → does not support directories within blob containers (Data Lake structure).

Hence, you can use only cont1 (container in storage1) and share1 (file share in storage1) to organize content as required.

This is directly supported by the Microsoft documentation on Data Lake Storage Gen2:

“When you enable the hierarchical namespace for a storage account, you can organize objects into directories and subdirectories. This capability is available only for accounts configured for Data Lake Storage Gen2.”

Final Verified Answer: ✅ B. cont1 and share1 only

In Microsoft Azure, containerized application deployment can occur using multiple services, depending on the image type and operating system platform used. The question refers to two images — Image1 (Windows Server) and Image2 (Linux) — which are stored in an Azure Container Registry (ACR).

According to the Microsoft Azure Administrator Study Guide (AZ-104) and official Azure documentation, both Windows-based and Linux-based container images can be deployed using any of the following services, depending on the workload requirements:

Azure App Service (Web App for Containers) – supports both Windows and Linux containers for web applications. It allows developers to directly deploy containerized applications from Docker Hub, Azure Container Registry, or a private registry.

Azure Container Apps – serverless container hosting designed for microservices and event-driven architectures. It supports Linux and Windows containers, using Kubernetes behind the scenes, without requiring users to manage the cluster infrastructure.

Azure Container Instances (ACI) – provides lightweight, serverless containers for quick deployment and isolated workloads. It supports both Windows and Linux images and can pull directly from Azure Container Registry.

Therefore, since both Image1 (Windows Server) and Image2 (Linux) are valid container images supported by the same three Azure container services, the correct and verified solution is to select “App Service, Azure Container Apps, or Azure Container Instances” for both.

This matches Azure documentation under:

“Run containerized applications in Azure App Service”

“Deploy containers using Azure Container Instances”

“Build and deploy microservices using Azure Container Apps”

Each of these Azure services supports containerized deployments from ACR regardless of the underlying operating system image type.

Final Verified Answer:

✅ Image1: App Service, Azure Container Apps, or Azure Container Instances

✅ Image2: App Service, Azure Container Apps, or Azure Container Instances

Every Azure AD directory comes with an initial domain name in the form of domainname.onmicrosoft.com.

The initial domain name cannot be changed or deleted, but you can add your corporate domain name to Azure AD as well. For example, your organization probably has other domain names used to do business and users who sign in using your corporate domain name. Adding custom domain names to Azure AD allows you to assign user names in the directory that are familiar to your users, such as ‘alice@contoso.com.’ instead of ' alice@domain name.onmicrosoft.com ' .

Scenario:

Network Infrastructure: Each office has a local data center that contains all the servers for that office. Each office has a dedicated connection to the Internet.

Humongous Insurance has a single-domain Active Directory forest named humongousinsurance.com

Planned Azure AD Infrastructure: The on-premises Active Directory domain will be synchronized to Azure AD.

To determine which virtual machines can be encrypted, we must refer to the technical requirement:

“Whenever possible, use Azure Disk Encryption and a key encryption key (KEK) to encrypt the virtual machines.”

According to the Microsoft Azure Administrator documentation, Azure Disk Encryption (ADE) uses BitLocker for Windows virtual machines and DM-Crypt for Linux virtual machines to encrypt OS and data disks. However, not all VM types and disk configurations are supported for ADE.

From the provided configuration:

VM

OS

Description

Disk Type

VM1

RHEL

Uses ephemeral OS disks

❌ Not supported

VM2

Windows Server 2022

Has a basic volume

✅ Supported

VM3

RHEL

Uses standard SSDs

✅ Supported by DM-Crypt, but not optimal

VM4

Windows Server 2022

Uses Write Accelerator disks

✅ Supported

VM5

Windows Server 2022

Has a dynamic volume

❌ Not supported by ADE

Step-by-step Analysis (Based on Microsoft Docs):

Ephemeral OS disks (VM1):

These are not compatible with Azure Disk Encryption because they are stored on local temporary storage and are not persisted to Azure Storage.

“Ephemeral OS disks cannot be encrypted using Azure Disk Encryption because they reside on local VM storage.” — [Microsoft Learn: Azure Disk Encryption prerequisites]

Dynamic volumes (VM5):

Azure Disk Encryption does not support dynamic disks — only basic disks are supported.

“Azure Disk Encryption does not support dynamic disks; only basic disks can be encrypted.” — [Microsoft Learn: ADE limitations]

Write Accelerator disks (VM4):

These disks can be encrypted if they are standard OS/data disks with Write Accelerator enabled. Microsoft confirms that ADE supports Write Accelerator–enabled disks on supported VM sizes.

Linux VMs (VM3) with standard SSDs can use DM-Crypt encryption, but in this question, the requirement specifies to use Azure Disk Encryption with a Key Encryption Key (KEK) — KEKs are supported only for Windows and Linux VMs that use managed disks and not ephemeral disks.

However, VM3 uses standard SSDs (supported by ADE) and VM2 and VM4 meet the technical requirement of using ADE with KEK, but Azure prefers Windows VMs for KEK integration because of BitLocker integration and Key Vault support.

Therefore, the verified supported VMs for Azure Disk Encryption with KEK are:

✅ VM2 (Windows Server 2022, basic volume)

✅ VM4 (Windows Server 2022, Write Accelerator disks)

Supporting Microsoft Documentation (Extracted):

“Azure Disk Encryption helps protect and safeguard your data to meet your organizational security and compliance commitments. It uses BitLocker for Windows VMs and DM-Crypt for Linux VMs.”

“ADE is not supported on ephemeral OS disks or dynamic disks.”

“You can use Key Encryption Keys (KEK) from Azure Key Vault for an added layer of security.”

(Source: Microsoft Learn – Azure Disk Encryption Overview, Prerequisites, and Supported Configurations for Windows and Linux VMs)

This question tests your understanding of Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and management group inheritance.

Scenario Breakdown:

MG1 → Management group containing Sub1 and Sub2

Group1 → Assigned Reader role at MG1

→ Inherited Reader permissions on Sub1 and Sub2 and all child resources (read-only access).

User1:

Member of Group1 → inherits Reader access via MG1.

Assigned User Access Administrator at MG1 → can manage role assignments across Sub1 and Sub2.

Assigned Virtual Machine Contributor on Sub1 and Sub2.

Assigned Contributor on RG1 (in Sub1).

Statement 1:

“The Group1 members can view the configurations of the Azure functions.”

✅ Yes

The Reader role allows users to view all configurations and metadata of Azure resources, including Azure Functions, but does not allow editing.

Since Group1 has the Reader role at the management group level, this permission cascades down to all subscriptions (Sub1, Sub2) and their resources (including RG1).

???? Microsoft Reference:

“Reader: View all resources, but cannot make any changes.”

(Source: Azure RBAC built-in roles — Reader)

Statement 2:

“User1 can assign the Owner role for RG1.”

✅ Yes

The User Access Administrator role grants the ability to manage role assignments in Azure RBAC.

Even without Owner permissions, a User Access Administrator can grant any role (including Owner) to others for scopes under their assignment.

User1’s User Access Administrator role is assigned at MG1, which includes Sub1, Sub2, and all underlying resource groups (like RG1).

???? Microsoft Reference:

“User Access Administrator: Lets you manage user access to Azure resources. It allows assigning or removing any role on the scope.”

(Source: Azure built-in roles documentation — User Access Administrator)

Statement 3:

“User1 can create a new resource group and deploy a virtual machine to the new group.”

❌ No

Although User1 has Contributor and Virtual Machine Contributor roles on Sub1 and Sub2, role inheritance is specific to the assigned scope.

The Virtual Machine Contributor can manage VM resources but cannot create new resource groups.

The Contributor role on RG1 gives full access only within that resource group — not at the subscription level.

To create new resource groups, a user must have Contributor or Owner permissions at the subscription level, which User1 does not have.

???? Microsoft Reference:

“Contributor: Grants full access to manage all Azure resources, but does not grant access to assign roles. To create resource groups, the Contributor must be assigned at the subscription level.”

(Source: Azure RBAC permissions and role scopes)

The correct role is Storage Blob Data Contributor . The requirement is not to manage the storage account resource itself; it is to allow Workspace1 to perform read, write, and delete operations against blob data stored in containers in storage1 . Microsoft defines Storage Blob Data Contributor as the built-in Azure RBAC role that can “read, write, and delete Azure Storage containers and blobs.”

For an Azure Synapse Analytics workspace, the role would be assigned to the workspace managed identity at the storage account or container scope, depending on the required access boundary. Microsoft’s Synapse guidance states that the Synapse workspace managed identity needs the Storage Blob Data Contributor role on the storage account to access Data Lake Storage and run workloads such as Spark.

The other roles are management-plane roles or insufficient for blob data operations. Storage Account Contributor and Contributor can manage Azure resources but do not directly grant blob data-plane read/write/delete permissions. Reader and Data Access is not the correct least-privilege role for write and delete blob operations. Study Guide reference: AZ-104 Implement and manage storage > configure access to storage, Azure Blob Storage, and Azure RBAC data roles.

The planned change specifies that you must configure a Data Collection Rule (DCR) to collect only system events with Event ID 4648 from VM2 and VM4.

A Data Collection Rule (DCR) in Azure Monitor defines how data is collected from resources, filtered, and sent to destinations like Log Analytics workspaces. To define or query this data within Azure Monitor Logs or Log Analytics, you use Kusto Query Language (KQL).

From the Microsoft Learn: Azure Monitor Logs Documentation:

“Log queries in Azure Monitor are written in Kusto Query Language (KQL), the same query language used by Azure Data Explorer.”

“KQL is optimized for querying large datasets, filtering by event IDs, sources, and event types.”

Other options:

WQL (WMI Query Language) – used for on-prem Windows event querying, not for Azure DCR.

T-SQL (Transact-SQL) – used for Azure SQL Database queries, not for monitoring data.

XPath – used in Event Viewer or XML-based event filtering, not within Azure Monitor DCR configuration.

Therefore, when you configure DCR1 to collect system events (Event ID 4648) from the specified VMs, the Kusto Query Language (KQL) is the correct and verified method to filter and process these events.

Example of a valid KQL expression for this requirement:

SecurityEvent

| where EventID == 4648

| where Computer in ( " VM2 " , " VM4 " )

This aligns with the Azure Monitor and Log Analytics query methodology covered in AZ-104 official exam guide (Implement and manage monitoring).

Box 1: Create a Recovery Services vault

Create a Recovery Services vault on the Azure Portal.

Box 2: Install the Azure Site Recovery Provider

Azure Site Recovery can be used to manage migration of on-premises machines to Azure.

Scenario: Migrate the virtual machines hosted on Server1 and Server2 to Azure.

Server2 has the Hyper-V host role.

1️⃣ Create a Log Analytics workspace.

2️⃣ Collect Windows performance counters from the Log Analytics agents.

3️⃣ Create an alert rule.

The question states:

“You need to configure the alerts for VM1 and VM2 to meet the technical requirements.”

The technical requirement from the case study specifies:

“Trigger an alert if VM1 or VM2 has less than 20 GB of free space on volume C.”

This requirement involves monitoring performance metrics (disk space) and generating alerts based on those metrics. According to Microsoft Azure monitoring and management documentation, the process to configure such alerts involves using Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.

Step-by-Step Verified Solution:

Step 1: Create a Log Analytics workspace

A Log Analytics workspace is required to store and analyze logs and performance data collected from virtual machines.

Azure Monitor uses this workspace as the central repository for performance counters, events, and logs from connected agents.

From the Microsoft Documentation:

“Before you can collect and query data from virtual machines, you must create a Log Analytics workspace in your subscription.”

(Source: Azure Monitor and Log Analytics Guide)

Step 2: Collect Windows performance counters from the Log Analytics agents

After creating the workspace, you must connect VM1 and VM2 to the workspace and configure the Windows performance counters that you want to monitor.

In this case, you would collect the LogicalDisk(%) Free Space counter for C: drive.

Azure Monitor agent or Log Analytics agent collects these metrics and sends them to the workspace for analysis.

“To monitor system performance, configure the agent to collect performance counters such as available memory or free disk space.”

(Source: Azure Monitor Performance Counters Documentation)

Step 3: Create an alert rule

Once performance data is being collected, you can create an alert rule in Azure Monitor based on a Kusto query or metric threshold.

You would define a condition such as:

LogicalDisk | where FreeSpaceMB < 20480

and configure it to trigger an alert when free space on volume C drops below 20 GB.

This alert can notify via email, action group, or automation runbook.

“Alerts in Azure Monitor proactively notify you when important conditions are found in your monitoring data. Alerts can trigger automated actions or notifications.”

(Source: Azure Monitor Alerts Overview)

Incorrect Options (Eliminated):

Configure the Diagnostic settings:

Used for collecting activity logs or resource logs, not performance counters from VMs.

Create an Azure SQL database:

Not relevant to the scenario of monitoring disk space.

Statement 1: Yes

Contoso is moving the existing product blueprint files to Azure Blob storage which will ensure that the blueprint files are stored in the archive storage tier.

Use unmanaged standard storage for the hard disks of the virtual machines. We use Page Blobs for these.

Statement 2: No

Azure Table storage stores large amounts of structured data. The service is a NoSQL datastore which accepts authenticated calls from inside and outside the Azure cloud. Azure tables are ideal for storing structured, non-relational data. Common uses of Table storage include:

1. Storing TBs of structured data capable of serving web scale applications

2. Storing datasets that don ' t require complex joins, foreign keys, or stored procedures and can be denormalized for fast access

3. Quickly querying data using a clustered index

4. Accessing data using the OData protocol and LINQ queries with WCF Data Service .NET Libraries

Statement 3: No

File Storage can be used if your business use case needs to deal mostly with standard File extensions like *.docx, *.png and *.bak then you should probably go with this storage option.