VM pricing models in Azure - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Understanding Azure VM Pricing Models

Which Azure VM pricing model offers the lowest cost for workloads that can be interrupted and restarted?

A Pay-as-you-go pricing

B Spot Instances

C Reserved Instances

D Dedicated Hosts

💡 Hint

Think about pricing models that allow Azure to reclaim capacity when needed.

Spot Instances offer the lowest cost but can be evicted when Azure needs capacity, making them suitable for interruptible workloads.

❓ Architecture

intermediate

Choosing VM Pricing for Long-Term Stable Workloads

You have a stable, long-running application that will run continuously for 3 years. Which Azure VM pricing model should you choose to minimize cost?

A Spot Instances

B Pay-as-you-go pricing

C Reserved Instances with 3-year term

D Dedicated Hosts

💡 Hint

Consider pricing models that offer discounts for long-term commitments.

Reserved Instances with a 3-year term provide significant discounts for long-term, stable workloads by committing to usage upfront.

❓ service_behavior

advanced

Behavior of Spot Instances During Capacity Reclamation

What happens to an Azure Spot VM when Azure needs the capacity back?

A The VM receives a notification and is evicted after a short period.

B The VM is deallocated immediately without warning.

C The VM is paused and resumed later automatically.

D The VM continues running until manually stopped.

💡 Hint

Think about how Azure informs users before reclaiming Spot VM capacity.

Azure Spot VMs receive a notification before eviction, allowing a short time to save state or shut down gracefully.

❓ security

advanced

Security Considerations for Dedicated Hosts

Which security advantage does using Azure Dedicated Hosts provide compared to shared VM pricing models?

A Automatic encryption of all VM data at rest

B No need for network security groups

C Built-in DDoS protection for all VMs

D Physical isolation of VMs on dedicated hardware for compliance needs

💡 Hint

Consider physical hardware isolation for compliance and security.

Dedicated Hosts provide physical isolation by dedicating hardware to a single customer, helping meet compliance and security requirements.

✅ Best Practice

expert

Optimizing Cost with Mixed VM Pricing Models

You need to run a batch processing job that can tolerate interruptions but also requires some guaranteed capacity. Which combination of Azure VM pricing models is best to optimize cost and reliability?

A Use a mix of Spot Instances for interruptible tasks and Reserved Instances for guaranteed capacity

B Use Spot Instances for all batch jobs to minimize cost

C Use Dedicated Hosts for all batch jobs to ensure isolation

D Use only Pay-as-you-go VMs for all batch jobs

💡 Hint

Think about balancing cost savings with reliability needs.

Combining Spot Instances for interruptible tasks with Reserved Instances for guaranteed capacity balances cost savings and reliability.