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🇬🇧 Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) · flashcards
Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) Flashcards
50 question-and-answer cards covering Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) as it is examined in Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900). 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
What is the core purpose of Azure Backup?
A cloud-based, agentless-or-agent service that backs up (and restores) Azure VMs, files/folders, SQL/SAP HANA in VMs, Azure Files, and on-prem data to a Recovery Services or Backup vault, without managing backup infrastructure.
What two vault types does Azure Backup use, and what does each support?
Recovery Services vault (Azure VMs, on-prem via MARS/MABS/DPM, Azure Files, SQL/SAP in VM) and the newer Backup vault (Azure Disks, Blobs, PostgreSQL, AKS, and other managed-data workloads).
What is a backup policy in Azure Backup composed of?
A schedule (when backups run — daily/weekly/hourly) plus a retention range (how long daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly recovery points are kept).
What does the Azure Backup MARS agent back up?
The Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent backs up files, folders, and system state from on-premises or Azure Windows machines directly to a Recovery Services vault.
What is the difference between MABS/DPM and the MARS agent in Azure Backup?
MARS backs up file/folder/system-state directly to the vault; MABS (Azure Backup Server) and System Center DPM back up app-aware workloads (SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, VMs) to a local disk first, then offload to the vault.
What are the storage redundancy options for a Recovery Services vault?
LRS (Locally Redundant), GRS (Geo-Redundant), and ZRS (Zone-Redundant). GRS is the default and supports cross-region restore; redundancy can only be changed before backups are configured.
What is Cross Region Restore (CRR) in Azure Backup, and what does it require?
It lets you restore Azure VM/SQL backups in the paired secondary region on demand. It requires the vault to use GRS redundancy with the Cross Region Restore property enabled.
What is the purpose of Azure Site Recovery (ASR)?
A disaster recovery service that replicates workloads (Azure VMs, on-prem VMware/Hyper-V/physical servers) to a secondary location and orchestrates failover and failback to keep apps running during an outage.
What is the key conceptual difference between Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery?
Backup protects data against loss/corruption with point-in-time recovery (higher RPO, used for retention/restore); Site Recovery provides business continuity via near-real-time replication and orchestrated failover (low RPO/RTO) for whole workloads.
Define RPO and RTO in the context of business continuity.
RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time (how old the recovered data can be). RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is the maximum acceptable time to restore service after an outage.
In Azure Site Recovery, what is a recovery plan?
An orchestrated, ordered grouping of replicated machines into tiers with optional scripts/manual actions, defining the sequence in which they fail over and start, so multi-tier apps recover in the correct order.
What is a failover versus a failback in Azure Site Recovery?
Failover switches the workload from the primary to the secondary (target) region/site when the primary is down; failback later returns the workload to the original primary location after it recovers, re-protecting it.
What is a test failover in ASR, and why is it important?
A non-disruptive failover into an isolated network that validates your DR strategy and recovery plan without affecting the production workload or ongoing replication. It is the recommended way to drill DR.
In ASR, what do crash-consistent and app-consistent recovery points mean?
A crash-consistent point captures on-disk data as if the machine crashed (no in-memory/app state); an app-consistent point additionally quiesces applications (via VSS on Windows) so in-memory data and pending transactions are flushed to disk, giving cleaner recovery.
What is a soft delete feature in a Recovery Services vault, and how long are deleted backups retained?
Soft delete retains deleted backup data for an additional 14 days at no cost, so accidentally or maliciously deleted backups can be recovered. It is enabled by default.
What is Multi-User Authorization (MUA) for a Recovery Services vault?
A security control that uses a Resource Guard so that critical/destructive operations (disabling soft delete, stopping backup with delete data) require approval from a second security admin, protecting against rogue actions.
How does Azure Backup help protect against ransomware at the vault level?
Through soft delete (14-day recovery of deleted data), immutable vaults (locking recovery points against early deletion), Multi-User Authorization, and security PINs for critical operations.
What is an immutable vault in Azure Backup?
A vault setting that prevents backup data (recovery points) from being deleted or having retention shortened before expiry, protecting backups from tampering; once locked the immutability cannot be reversed.
What Azure service applies and manages OS patches/updates across Azure and Arc-enabled machines at scale?
Azure Update Manager (the successor to Update Management in Azure Automation). It assesses missing updates, schedules patch deployments, and reports compliance without needing a Log Analytics workspace or Automation account.
In Azure Update Manager, what is the difference between an assessment and a deployment (maintenance) schedule?
An assessment scans a machine to report which updates are missing/compliance status; a deployment (maintenance configuration/schedule) actually installs selected updates within a defined maintenance window.
What is the Custom Script Extension for Azure VMs used for?
It downloads and runs scripts (e.g. PowerShell or Bash) on an Azure VM for post-deployment configuration, software installation, or any automated management task on the guest OS.
What is Azure VM Applications versus the Custom Script Extension for installing software?
VM Applications package and deploy/manage application binaries through the Azure Compute Gallery with versioning and lifecycle control; the Custom Script Extension runs arbitrary one-off scripts. VM Applications are the more managed, repeatable approach.
What is Azure Automation State Configuration (DSC) used for?
It applies and continuously enforces a desired configuration on machines via PowerShell Desired State Configuration, automatically remediating drift so nodes stay in their declared compliant state.
What is an Azure Automation runbook, and which type is most common for orchestration tasks?
A runbook is a packaged automation script run by Azure Automation to perform routine operational tasks. PowerShell and PowerShell Workflow runbooks are common; graphical runbooks offer a visual designer. They are often triggered on a schedule or by a webhook/alert action group.
What this deck covers
The Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) deck follows the Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) syllabus — 3 chapters and 10 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 16.7 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 210 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) flashcards FAQ
How many Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) flashcards are in this Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) deck?
50 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 50-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) cards cover?
They follow the Microsoft Azure Certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-900) Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (AZ-104) syllabus — 3 chapters and 10 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.