Mixed Deck — All AZ-300 Topics Flashcards

Which Azure SQL Database feature enables automatic failover to a secondary database in a different region with minimal data loss?

Answer: Active geo-replication

Active geo-replication continuously replicates an Azure SQL Database to up to four readable secondary databases in different regions, and supports manual or automatic failover.

What is the purpose of Azure Storage shared access signatures (SAS)?

Answer: Grant limited, time-bound access to storage resources without sharing the account key

SAS tokens provide delegated, fine-grained access to Azure Storage resources with configurable permissions, IP restrictions, and expiry times.

Which VM series is best suited for GPU-accelerated HPC and AI training workloads in Azure?

Answer: NCv3 series

The NCv3 series features NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, making it ideal for HPC, AI training, and deep learning workloads.

Which feature allows an Azure VM to maintain its state and IP address while the underlying hardware is updated by Microsoft?

Answer: Live Migration

Live Migration moves a running VM to updated hardware seamlessly without downtime, preserving state and IP configuration.

You need to protect Azure VMs with a daily backup and retain recovery points for 30 days. Which service should you use?

Answer: Azure Backup with a Recovery Services vault

Azure Backup with a Recovery Services vault supports policy-based daily VM backups with configurable retention periods, making it the correct service for this requirement.

Which Azure AD feature detects risky sign-ins and compromised user accounts using machine learning and threat intelligence?

Answer: Identity Protection

Azure AD Identity Protection uses ML-based risk detection to identify compromised accounts and risky sign-in behaviors, triggering automated remediation policies.

Which Azure Storage redundancy option replicates data synchronously across three availability zones within the same region?

Answer: ZRS

Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) replicates data synchronously across three availability zones in a single region, protecting against datacenter failures.

What does the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) define in a business continuity plan?

Answer: The maximum time allowed to restore business operations after a disaster

RTO is the maximum tolerable duration of a service outage — it defines how quickly systems must be restored to avoid unacceptable business impact.

What is the benefit of enabling 'Accelerated Networking' on an Azure VM?

Answer: Bypasses the host vSwitch for lower latency and higher throughput

Accelerated Networking uses SR-IOV to bypass the host virtual switch, providing significantly lower latency and higher network throughput.

On Azure virtual machines, you have a Microsoft SQL Server Always On availability group. As a listener for the availability group, you must configure an Azure internal load balancer. What are your options?

Answer: Enable Floating lP

When configuring an Azure Internal Load Balancer for a SQL Server Always On Availability Group listener, it is essential to enable Direct Server Return (DSR), also known as Floating IP. This setting ensures that the primary replica (the active SQL VM) can respond directly to client requests without the response traffic having to pass back through the load balancer. This direct response mechanism is crucial for the listener to function correctly and maintain high availability for the SQL Always On group.

Which Azure feature prevents accidental deletion or modification of critical resources by applying a lock?

Answer: Resource Locks (CanNotDelete / ReadOnly)

Resource Locks apply CanNotDelete or ReadOnly constraints to resources, overriding RBAC permissions to prevent accidental deletion or modification.

What is the maximum size of a single Azure Blob?

Answer: 190.7 TB

A single block blob in Azure Blob Storage can be up to approximately 190.7 TB (200 GB per block × 50,000 blocks).

Which KEDA (Kubernetes Event-Driven Autoscaling) scaler is used in Azure Container Apps to scale based on Azure Storage Queue depth?

Answer: Azure Storage Queue scaler

KEDA's Azure Storage Queue scaler triggers pod/container scaling based on the number of messages in an Azure Storage Queue.

What is the purpose of AKS 'namespaces' in a multi-team Kubernetes environment?

Answer: Provide logical isolation between teams or workloads within a single cluster

Kubernetes namespaces divide a cluster into virtual sub-clusters, enabling resource isolation, RBAC scoping, and quota management per team or workload.

What is the role of Azure Bastion in a network architecture?

Answer: Provides secure RDP/SSH to VMs without exposing public IPs

Azure Bastion is a fully managed PaaS service that provides secure RDP and SSH access to VMs directly through the Azure portal, without requiring public IP addresses.

Which feature of Azure Virtual WAN simplifies hub-and-spoke networking at global scale?

Answer: Managed virtual hubs with automated routing

Azure Virtual WAN uses managed virtual hubs that automate routing configuration, enabling full-mesh connectivity between branches, VNets, and Azure services.

Which Azure load balancing service operates at Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) and provides global distribution of web traffic with SSL offloading?

Answer: Azure Front Door

Azure Front Door operates at Layer 7 globally, providing HTTP/HTTPS load balancing, SSL offloading, WAF, and Anycast routing to the closest healthy backend across regions.

What does 'just-in-time (JIT) VM access' in Microsoft Defender for Cloud do?

Answer: Locks down management ports and allows access only when requested for a limited time

JIT VM access closes RDP/SSH ports by default and opens them only for approved requests with a specific time window, reducing attack surface.

Which Azure container service provides a fully managed Kubernetes environment without requiring cluster infrastructure management?

Answer: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) manages the Kubernetes control plane and simplifies deployment, scaling, and operations of containerized applications.

What does Azure Cost Management + Billing enable architects to do?

Answer: Analyze cloud spending, set budgets with alerts, and forecast future costs across subscriptions

Azure Cost Management provides cost analysis dashboards, budget alerts, and forecasting to help organizations understand and control their Azure spending.