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🇺🇸 Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate · subject

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources Syllabus

The Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources syllabus for Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate in full: 3 chapters, 12 topics and 10 sub-topics, every one listed below, plus 50 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources flashcards with answers.

3Chapters
12Topics
10Sub-topics
50Flashcards

Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources syllabus: all 3 chapters

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics.

  1. Azure Monitor and Insights

     5 topics
    • Metrics and metric explorer
      • Platform vs custom metrics
      • Aggregation and dimensions
    • Activity log and resource logs
    • Log Analytics workspaces
      • Configuring diagnostic settings
      • Kusto Query Language (KQL) basics
    • Alerts and action groups
      • Metric, log, and activity log alerts
      • Alert processing rules and severity
    • Application Insights overview

  2. Backup and Recovery

     4 topics
    • Recovery Services vaults and Backup vaults
    • Azure VM backup and restore
      • Backup policies and retention
      • File-level and full VM restore
    • Azure Files backup
    • Soft delete for backups

  3. Site Recovery and Business Continuity

     3 topics
    • Azure Site Recovery concepts
      • Replication policies and recovery plans
      • Failover and failback operations
    • Recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO/RTO)
    • Disaster recovery for Azure VMs

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources flashcards — 50 questions with answers

  1. In Azure Monitor, what are metrics and where are they stored?

    Metrics are numerical values collected at regular intervals that describe some aspect of a resource at a point in time. They are lightweight, near real-time, and stored in a time-series database, retained by default for 93 days.

  2. What is Metric Explorer used for in Azure Monitor?

    Metric Explorer is the tool in Azure Monitor used to plot, chart, and visually analyze metrics over time. You select a resource scope, a metric namespace, a metric, and an aggregation to build charts.

  3. What aggregation types can be applied to a metric in Metric Explorer?

    Sum, Average (Avg), Minimum (Min), Maximum (Max), and Count.

  4. What is the difference between platform metrics and custom metrics in Azure Monitor?

    Platform metrics are collected automatically from Azure resources at no cost. Custom metrics are collected from applications (e.g., via Application Insights) or agents and must be explicitly emitted.

  5. What is the default and maximum data granularity for Azure Monitor metrics?

    Platform metrics are collected at a one-minute frequency by default (some at lower frequency), and Metric Explorer can display down to one-minute granularity.

  6. What is the Azure Activity Log and what does it record?

    The Activity Log is a subscription-level (control-plane) log that records operations performed ON Azure resources, such as create, update, delete, and administrative/service-health events. It answers who did what, when, on which resource.

  7. How long is Azure Activity Log data retained by default, and how do you keep it longer?

    Activity Log entries are retained for 90 days by default. To retain longer, route the log to a Log Analytics workspace, a storage account, or Event Hubs via a diagnostic setting.

  8. What is the difference between the Activity Log and resource (diagnostic) logs?

    The Activity Log captures control-plane operations on resources (management actions). Resource logs (formerly diagnostic logs) capture data-plane operations performed within a resource (e.g., key reads from a Key Vault) and are not collected until a diagnostic setting is configured.

  9. What Azure feature is required to send resource logs to a destination, and what are the destinations?

    A diagnostic setting is required. Destinations are a Log Analytics workspace, an Azure Storage account (archive), an Event Hub (streaming to third parties), and an Azure Monitor partner solution.

  10. What are the three categories of data captured in Azure Monitor's data platform?

    Metrics (numeric time-series), Logs (Log Analytics — text/structured records), and traces/distributed tracing. Conceptually summarized as Metrics and Logs as the two fundamental data types.

  11. What is a Log Analytics workspace?

    A Log Analytics workspace is the central repository where Azure Monitor stores log data. It is the destination for resource logs, activity logs, and agent data, and is queried using KQL.

  12. What query language is used to query a Log Analytics workspace?

    Kusto Query Language (KQL).

  13. What is the default retention period for data in a Log Analytics workspace?

    30 days by default (31 days), extendable up to 730 days (2 years) in interactive retention, with long-term archive available beyond that.

  14. In KQL, which operator filters rows by a condition?

    The 'where' operator (e.g., Heartbeat | where Computer == 'VM1').

  15. What is an Azure Monitor alert and what are its three states?

    An alert proactively notifies you when conditions are found in monitoring data. The three user-response states are New, Acknowledged, and Closed.

  16. What are the main types of Azure Monitor alerts?

    Metric alerts, Log (search query) alerts, Activity Log alerts, and Service Health alerts (plus Smart Detection alerts from Application Insights).

  17. What are the components of an Azure Monitor alert rule?

    Scope (target resource), Condition (signal + logic/threshold), Action (action group to invoke), and alert details (name, severity, description).

  18. What is an action group in Azure Monitor?

    A reusable, named collection of notification preferences and actions that is triggered when an alert fires. It defines who is notified and what automated actions run.

  19. What notification and action types can an action group include?

    Notifications: email, SMS, push (Azure mobile app), voice. Actions: Automation Runbook, Azure Function, Logic App, webhook, secure webhook, ITSM, and Event Hub.

  20. What do the Azure Monitor alert severity levels 0 through 4 mean?

    Sev 0 = Critical, Sev 1 = Error, Sev 2 = Warning, Sev 3 = Informational, Sev 4 = Verbose.

Show the other 30 Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources flashcards

  1. What is Application Insights?

    Application Insights is the Application Performance Management (APM) feature of Azure Monitor for live web applications. It monitors availability, performance, usage, and failures, and supports distributed tracing.

  2. What is the Application Map in Application Insights?

    A visual diagram showing the components of a distributed application and the dependencies/calls between them, with health, performance, and failure data to help locate bottlenecks and failure points.

  3. In Application Insights, what does Live Metrics Stream provide?

    A near real-time (one-second latency) view of an application's performance and activity, allowing you to watch metrics and telemetry as events happen without affecting stored data.

  4. What is a Recovery Services vault?

    A storage management entity in Azure that holds backup data and recovery points for Azure VMs, Azure Files, SQL/SAP in VMs, on-premises workloads (via MARS/MABS/DPM), and is also used for Azure Site Recovery.

  5. What is the difference between a Recovery Services vault and a Backup vault?

    Recovery Services vault supports Azure VM backup, Azure Files, MARS agent, MABS/DPM, and Azure Site Recovery. The newer Backup vault supports the managed-disk, blob, PostgreSQL/database, and Kubernetes (AKS) backup workloads. They are separate vault types.

  6. What workloads are protected by a Backup vault (not a Recovery Services vault)?

    Azure Managed Disks, Azure Blobs, Azure Database for PostgreSQL/PostgreSQL flexible server, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Azure Disk — the newer-generation Azure Backup workloads.

  7. What storage redundancy options are available for a Recovery Services vault?

    Locally redundant storage (LRS), Geo-redundant storage (GRS, the default), and Zone-redundant storage (ZRS). GRS can also enable Cross-Region Restore.

  8. Why must storage redundancy of a Recovery Services vault be set before the first backup?

    The storage replication type (LRS/GRS/ZRS) can only be changed while no backup items are protected in the vault; once a backup item exists, the redundancy setting is locked.

  9. What extension is installed on an Azure VM to enable Azure VM-level backup?

    The VMSnapshot extension (Microsoft Azure Backup VM extension) is installed by the Azure Backup service to coordinate application-consistent snapshots.

  10. What is a backup policy in Azure Backup?

    A backup policy defines the schedule (when/how often backups run) and the retention range (how long recovery points are kept), including daily/weekly/monthly/yearly retention rules.

  11. What consistency levels can Azure VM backup snapshots achieve?

    Application-consistent (uses VSS on Windows / pre-post scripts on Linux — best), File-system consistent (crash-safe, no in-flight memory), and Crash-consistent (as if power was pulled — least desirable).

  12. What restore options are available when restoring an Azure VM from backup?

    Create a new VM, Restore disks (then attach/build a VM), Replace existing disk, and Restore specific files/folders via File Recovery (mounting the recovery point as an iSCSI drive).

  13. What is the default and maximum backup frequency for standard Azure VM backup policy?

    The standard policy backs up once per day. The Enhanced backup policy supports multiple backups per day (e.g., every 4 hours), giving lower RPO.

  14. How does Azure Files backup work, and where are snapshots stored?

    Azure Files backup uses native file-share snapshots managed by Azure Backup through a Recovery Services vault. Snapshots are stored within the storage account (local snapshots), and the vault manages scheduling, retention, and restore.

  15. What restore granularity does Azure Files backup support?

    You can restore the entire file share or individual files/folders, either to the original location or an alternate location, from a snapshot recovery point.

  16. What is soft delete for Azure Backup?

    A feature that retains deleted backup data for an additional period (default 14 days) at no extra cost after a backup item is deleted, allowing recovery of accidentally or maliciously deleted backups.

  17. What is the default soft-delete retention period and is it configurable?

    The default soft-delete retention is 14 days at no cost. It can be configured between 14 and 180 days (extended/configurable soft delete), with charges for retention beyond 14 days.

  18. How do you permanently delete backup data protected by soft delete?

    You must first disable/undelete then stop protection with delete, or wait for the soft-delete period; after soft delete you 'undelete' to recover, or the data is purged automatically once the soft-delete window expires.

  19. What is Always-on / enhanced soft delete in Azure Backup?

    Enhanced (always-on) soft delete can be made irreversible (cannot be disabled) to guarantee protection against malicious deletion, providing immutability for backup data.

  20. What is Azure Site Recovery (ASR)?

    A disaster recovery (DRaaS) service that replicates workloads (Azure VMs, on-premises VMware/Hyper-V/physical servers) to a secondary location and orchestrates failover and failback to keep applications running during outages.

  21. What is the difference between Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery?

    Azure Backup protects data against corruption/loss/accidental deletion by storing recovery points for restore. Azure Site Recovery provides business continuity by replicating whole workloads to a secondary region for fast failover during a disaster.

  22. What is a recovery point in Azure Site Recovery, and what types exist?

    A recovery point is a snapshot of replicated data you can fail over to. Types: Crash-consistent recovery points (disk state) and App-consistent recovery points (include in-memory/app data, generated less frequently).

  23. What is a failover and a failback in Azure Site Recovery?

    Failover is switching production to the replicated copy in the secondary site during an outage. Failback is returning production to the original primary site after it is restored.

  24. What is a test failover (DR drill) in Azure Site Recovery?

    A non-disruptive validation that creates a copy of the workload in an isolated network at the DR site to verify the recovery plan works, without impacting production or ongoing replication.

  25. What is a recovery plan in Azure Site Recovery?

    An orchestration object that groups machines and defines the ordered sequence (groups, manual actions, scripts/runbooks) for failing over and recovering a multi-tier application as a unit.

  26. Define RPO (Recovery Point Objective).

    RPO is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time — how far back the recovery point can be. It determines how frequently backups/replication must occur (e.g., a 1-hour RPO means losing at most 1 hour of data).

  27. Define RTO (Recovery Time Objective).

    RTO is the maximum acceptable amount of time to restore service after a disruption — how long the system can be down before it must be back online.

  28. How do RPO and RTO differ in what they measure?

    RPO measures acceptable data loss (looks backward in time before the incident); RTO measures acceptable downtime (looks forward — time to recover). Lower values for either cost more.

  29. What is a typical RPO offered by Azure Site Recovery for Azure-to-Azure replication?

    Azure Site Recovery provides continuous replication for Azure VMs with an RPO of about 30 seconds (crash-consistent recovery points generated every ~5 minutes, app-consistent per schedule).

  30. What components are needed to set up disaster recovery for Azure VMs with Site Recovery?

    A target/secondary region, a Recovery Services vault, a target resource group, target virtual network, a cache storage account (for replication logs), and replication policy defining recovery point retention and app-consistent snapshot frequency; the Mobility service extension is installed on each VM.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources FAQ

What is in the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources syllabus?

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources is split into 3 chapters: Azure Monitor and Insights, Backup and Recovery and Site Recovery and Business Continuity. Together they contain 12 topics and 10 sub-topics.

How many chapters are in Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources?

3 chapters, containing 12 topics and 10 sub-topics. The largest chapter is Azure Monitor and Insights, with 5 topics.

Are there flashcards for Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources?

Yes — a 50-card Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources deck, printed in full in the flashcards section of this page and available in the Examius app with spaced repetition. The free plan covers one exam of your choice, including its flashcards; Examius Pro, a one-time purchase, unlocks every other exam and deck.