Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources Syllabus

Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources in Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Virtual Machines

   5 topics

   • Creating and sizing VMs
     • VM series and resizing
     • Generation 1 vs Generation 2 VMs
   • VM disks
     • Managed disk types (Standard HDD, Standard SSD, Premium SSD, Ultra)
     • OS, data, and temporary disks
     • Disk encryption and snapshots
   • Availability and resiliency
     • Availability sets (fault and update domains)
     • Availability zones
   • VM extensions and custom script extension
   • Connecting to VMs (RDP, SSH, Bastion)
2. 2

   Scaling and Automation

   3 topics

   • Virtual Machine Scale Sets
     • Uniform vs flexible orchestration
     • Manual and autoscale profiles
     • Scaling rules and metrics
   • ARM templates and Bicep
     • Template structure (parameters, variables, resources, outputs)
     • Deployment modes (incremental vs complete)
     • Exporting templates from existing resources
   • VM availability planning for scale
3. 3

   Containers and App Services

   4 topics

   • Azure Container Instances
     • Container groups and restart policies
     • Mounting volumes and environment variables
   • Azure Container Apps
     • Revisions, scaling, and ingress
   • Azure App Service plans
     • Pricing tiers and scaling (up vs out)
   • App Service web app configuration
     • Deployment slots and slot swapping
     • Custom domains and TLS bindings
     • Application settings and connection strings

Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources flashcards for Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

22 of 50 cards from the Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. When creating an Azure VM, what does the VM size (SKU) primarily determine?

   The amount of compute resources allocated to the VM: number of vCPUs, amount of memory (RAM), temporary storage, max number/type of data disks, and network bandwidth.

2. What do the Azure VM size series letters B, D, F, E, and M generally indicate?

   B = Burstable (economical, banked credits); D = General purpose (balanced CPU-to-memory); F = Compute optimized (high CPU-to-memory); E = Memory optimized (high memory-to-CPU); M = Memory optimized for very large in-memory workloads.

3. What is a Burstable (B-series) VM and when is it cost-effective?

   A VM that accumulates CPU credits when running below its baseline and spends them to burst above baseline. Cost-effective for workloads with low average CPU that occasionally need full performance (e.g., dev/test, low-traffic web servers).

4. What are the two types of disk storage roles a VM uses, and how do they differ in persistence?

   OS disk and data disks are persistent (stored as managed disks, survive reboots/deallocation); the temporary disk (often D:) provides short-term storage and its data is lost on deallocation, resize, or host maintenance.

5. List the four Azure managed disk performance tiers from highest to lowest performance.

   Ultra Disk (highest), Premium SSD, Standard SSD, Standard HDD (lowest).

6. Which Azure managed disk types are backed by SSD versus HDD?

   Ultra Disk, Premium SSD, and Standard SSD are SSD-backed; Standard HDD is hard-disk-drive-backed.

7. What is the key advantage of Azure managed disks over unmanaged disks?

   Azure handles the underlying storage accounts automatically, providing simplified management, better reliability/availability, scalability (no per-storage-account IOPS limits), and built-in support for availability sets/zones, encryption, and snapshots.

8. Which Azure disk type supports adjusting IOPS and throughput independently of disk size, without restarting the VM?

   Ultra Disk (and Premium SSD v2).

9. What is the difference between a managed disk snapshot and an image in Azure?

   A snapshot is a read-only point-in-time copy of a single managed disk (used for backup or creating a new disk); an image is a copy of an entire VM (OS + data disks) used to create multiple identical VMs.

10. What is Azure Disk Encryption (ADE) and what technology does it use?

    ADE encrypts OS and data disks of a VM using BitLocker for Windows and dm-crypt for Linux, with keys stored in Azure Key Vault.

11. Define an Azure Availability Set and its purpose.

    A logical grouping of VMs within a datacenter that lets Azure distribute them across fault domains and update domains to protect against hardware failures and planned maintenance, increasing application availability.

12. What is a Fault Domain in an Azure Availability Set?

    A group of VMs that share a common power source and network switch (physical rack). Spreading VMs across fault domains protects against a single hardware/power/network failure.

13. What is an Update Domain in an Azure Availability Set?

    A logical group of VMs and hardware that can be rebooted together during planned maintenance. Azure updates one update domain at a time so not all VMs go down simultaneously.

14. What is an Azure Availability Zone?

    A physically separate location within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying across zones protects against an entire datacenter failure.

15. What SLA does Azure provide for two or more VMs deployed across multiple Availability Zones?

    99.99% VM uptime SLA.

16. What VM uptime SLA does Azure provide for two or more VMs in the same Availability Set?

    99.95% SLA.

17. What single-instance VM uptime SLA requires using Premium SSD or Ultra Disk for all disks?

    99.9% SLA for a single VM when all OS and data disks use Premium SSD or Ultra Disk.

18. Compare Availability Sets and Availability Zones in terms of failure protection scope.

    Availability Sets protect against failures within a single datacenter (rack-level: power, network, maintenance); Availability Zones protect against an entire datacenter failure by spreading VMs across physically separate locations in a region.

19. What is an Azure VM extension?

    A small application/agent that provides post-deployment configuration and automation tasks on a VM, such as installing software, running scripts, configuring monitoring, or managing security/anti-malware.

20. What does the Custom Script Extension do for Azure VMs?

    Downloads and runs scripts (e.g., PowerShell on Windows or shell scripts on Linux) on the VM after deployment, used to bootstrap or configure the machine automatically.

21. From where can the Custom Script Extension retrieve its scripts?

    From Azure Storage (blob), GitHub, or any public/accessible location via URL; the script and arguments can also be provided inline.

22. Name three common Azure VM extensions besides Custom Script Extension.

    Desired State Configuration (DSC) extension, Azure Diagnostics/Monitor agent (Log Analytics agent), and anti-malware/security extensions (e.g., Microsoft Antimalware). (Also network watcher, dependency agent.)

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