Cracking the Microsoft Azure Interview in 2025: What You Must Know

1. What is Microsoft Azure, and why is it used mostly?

Answer: Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and system created by Microsoft for building, delivering, and handling applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. It supports various programming languages, frameworks, and tools, both Microsoft-specific and third-party systems.

Azure is preferred due to its hybrid compatibility, flexibility, scalability, and strong enterprise-level security features.

Its Cloud Adoption Framework helps organizations strategize and align their cloud goals through six key stages:

1. Strategy
2. Plan
3. Ready
4. Innovate
5. Govern
6. Manage

For complete learning, check out this role-based certification: Microsoft Azure Administrator.

2. Which service in Azure is used to manage resources effectively?

Answer:

You can manage your Azure resources effectively with Azure Resource Manager (ARM). It allows for deployment, management, and observing of resources using a consistent management layer. With ARM, you can group related resources and deploy them together in a template-driven model, making operations streamlined and repeatable.

3. What is Azure Diagnostic?

Answer: Azure Diagnostics is an API-based system that helps collect diagnostic data like logs, crash dumps, and performance counters from Azure applications. This is important for analysing, troubleshooting, and optimizing running cloud services.

4. What are the 3 main components of the Windows Azure platform?

Answer:  Windows Azure Compute – For providing and running applications.

• Windows Azure Storage – For storing data, including blobs, tables, and queues.
• Windows Azure AppFabric – For messaging, gain control, and service connectivity.

These basic components create the foundation of all Azure services, explained in most beginner to intermediate roles.

5. What is Windows Azure AppFabric?

Answer: Azure AppFabric (now part of broader Azure services) is used to collect diagnostics from running applications, manage service buses, and allow smooth addition and access control. It’s important for the hybrid app structure.

6. What’s the difference between Windows Azure Queues and Service Bus Queues?

Answer:

 
 

Use Azure Queues for normal messaging and Service Bus Queues when you need complicated workflows, retry policies, or message ordering.

7. What is Autoscaling in Azure, and how does it work?

Answer: Autoscaling is a built-in feature in Azure that automatically adjusts the number of compute resources based on load or performance. It ensures your applications stay responsive even under fluctuating demand.

For instance:

• Scale out: Add more VMs during high traffic.
• Scale in: Reduce resources during low usage to save costs.

Autoscaling is applicable to Virtual Machines, App Services, and Cloud Services.

8. What are the types of deployment models in Microsoft Azure?

Answer: Azure provides three main delivery models:

• Classic Delivery (ASM) – Older method using XML configuration. Not suggested for new deliveries.
• Resource Manager (ARM) – Modern model using formats to handle resources realistically.
• Bicep – A domain-specific language (DSL) for clearly delivering Azure resources. Easier than raw ARM JSON.

Most modern solutions are built using ARM or Bicep, providing infrastructure as code (IaC) abilities.

9. What is the difference between Azure Blob Storage and Azure File Storage?

Answer:

   

• Use Blob Storage when you need high-performance object storage.

 

• Use File Storage when you need a shared file system between multiple VMs or applications.

10. What are the types of Azure Storage Accounts?

Answer:

There are five main types of Azure storage accounts:

1. General-purpose v2 (GPv2) – Generally used. Providing backups to blobs, files, queues, and tables.
2. General-purpose v1 (GPv1) – Older generation; cost-effective but with minimum features.
3. Blob Storage Account – Optimized for unstructured data like media files.
4. Premium Storage Account – Offers SSD-backed storage for low-latency scenarios.
5. BlockBlobStorage / FileStorage – Specialized high-performance storage for demanding workloads.

Understanding these is essential for optimizing Azure cloud computing questions during your interview.

11. What types of Load Balancers are available in Azure?

Answer: Azure offers two main types:

1. Basic Load Balancer

• Free
• Works within a single availability set
• Limited features

2. Standard Load Balancer

• Supports multiple virtual networks
• Secure by default
• Includes zone redundancy and diagnostic logging

There’s also Azure Application Gateway and Azure Front Door for Layer 7 load balancing and application acceleration.

12. What is an Availability Set in Azure?

Answer: An Availability Set ensures that VMs are distributed across fault domains and update domains within a data center. This protects your services against hardware failures and planned maintenance.

Use it to meet the 99.95% SLA requirement in Azure.

13. What is an Availability Zone in Azure?

Answer: Availability Zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region. Each zone has independent power, cooling, and networking. When you deploy across zones, your app can survive datacenter-level failures, enhancing high availability.

Difference?

• Sets = within a single data center
• Zones = across multiple data centers

14. What is Azure Traffic Manager, and how is it different from Load Balancer?

Answer: Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based global traffic distribution system. It routes users to the nearest service endpoint using traffic-routing methods like:

• Priority
• Performance
• Geographic

While Azure Load Balancer works at the transport layer within regions, Traffic Manager is a global service working across regions.

15. What is Azure Virtual Network (VNet)?

Answer: A VNet is the foundation of your private network in Azure. It allows you to securely connect Azure resources to each other, to the internet, or to on-premises networks via VPN or ExpressRoute.

It supports:

• Subnets
• Network security groups (NSGs)
• Route tables
• Service endpoints

Essential for mastering Azure compute and networking services.

Want a guided learning path that covers all of this and more? Explore Novelvista for hands-on Azure certifications and live expert sessions.

16. What are the core Azure Security services?

Answer: Microsoft Azure offers a suite of built-in security services to help protect data, applications, and infrastructure:

• Azure Security Center – Centralized view of your security posture
• Azure Defender – Threat protection for cloud workloads like VMs, containers, and SQL.
• Azure Key Vault – Secure storage for secrets, keys, and certificates.
• Azure Firewall – Managed, cloud-based network security service.
• Azure DDoS Protection – Mitigates distributed denial-of-service attacks.

Understanding these is crucial in any Microsoft Azure technical interview.

17. What is Azure Active Directory (AAD), and how does it work?

Answer: Azure Active Directory is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) service. It helps employees sign in and access:

• Internal resources (apps, network)
• External services (Microsoft 365, SaaS apps)

Key features include:

• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Conditional Access policies
• Role-based access control (RBAC)

AAD is a key player in enterprise Azure cloud computing questions and governance strategies.

18. What is Azure Sentinel?

Answer: Azure Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) and SOAR (Security Orchestration Automated Response) solution.With AI-based threat detection and automation, it helps:

• Monitor all user and application activity
• Detect threats across hybrid environments.
• Automate responses via playbooks (Logic Apps)

If you're interviewing for cloud security roles, expect deep dives into Sentinel.

19. How does Azure support Machine Learning and AI?

Answer: Azure provides end-to-end AI/ML tools through the Azure Machine Learning service. It supports:

• Model training and deployment
• MLOps (DevOps for ML)
• AutoML and Designer (drag-and-drop interface)
• Integration with Jupyter Notebooks, Python SDK, and Azure Databricks

Also included:

• Azure Cognitive Services (vision, speech, language)
• Azure OpenAI Service for generative AI

This makes Microsoft a key player in enterprise-grade AI/ML services.

20. What is Azure Synapse Analytics?

Answer:Azure Synapse Analytics is an integrated platform for data integration, data warehousing, and big data analytics.

It combines:

• SQL-based data warehousing
• Spark-based big data processing
• Power BI integration for visualization

Ideal for real-time reporting, predictive analytics, and advanced business intelligence projects.

21. Scenario-Based: You have a client in Europe and Asia. How would you ensure low latency for users globally?

Answer: You should use a combination of:

• Azure Front Door or Traffic Manager – To route traffic based on user geography.
• Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) – To cache content close to users.
• Deploy app backends in multiple Azure regions (e.g., West Europe, Southeast Asia)

This approach ensures low latency, high availability, and regional failover support.

22. Scenario-Based: You need to secure secrets and API keys for your app. What would you use?

Answer: The best choice is Azure Key Vault. It allows:

• Secure storage of secrets, keys, and certificates
• RBAC for controlled access
• Integration with Azure services (App Services, Functions)

Bonus: You can auto-rotate secrets and enable logging for compliance.

23. Scenario-Based: Your app faces sudden traffic spikes. How do you scale automatically?

Answer: Use Azure App Service with Autoscale Rules based on:

• CPU/Memory usage
• HTTP queue length
• Custom metrics via Azure Monitor

Or, for container-based apps, use AKS with Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA).

This setup allows elastic scaling—matching capacity to demand without manual intervention.\

Interview Tip:

Want to crush your next Azure interview? Start with foundational topics like Azure services explained, then move to real-world scenarios like those above. For more tailored insights, explore the Top 20 Microsoft Azure Questions guide—it’s a game-changer

24. What is Azure Load Balancer, and what types are available?

Answer: Azure Load Balancer is a fully managed load balancing service that distributes incoming network traffic to multiple backend resources like VMs. It ensures high availability by distributing workloads effectively.

There are two types:

1. Public Load Balancer – For distributing traffic to publicly accessible resources.
2. Internal Load Balancer – For distributing traffic inside your virtual network.

25. What are Azure Deployment Models?

Answer: Azure offers three deployment models:

• Resource Manager (ARM) – The modern model for deploying resources, enabling management through templates.
• Classic – The legacy model, offering fewer features but still supported for backwards compatibility.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) – A fully managed container orchestration service that supports containerized applications.These deployment models cater to different use cases depending on complexity, scalability, and automation needs.

26. How does Azure manage Availability Zones and Sets?

Answer: Azure Availability Zones are physically separated locations within a region that protect applications and data from data center failures.

Availability Sets are used to group VMs to ensure that the VMs are distributed across different physical servers, racks, and power units within a data center.

By using these, your services become more resilient to failures, with high availability ensured even if one zone or data center experiences downtime.

27. What is the purpose of Azure Blob Storage?

Answer: Azure Blob Storage is designed to store large amounts of unstructured data such as documents, images, video files, backups, and logs.

Key features include:

• Scalability – Can store massive amounts of data.
• Tiering – Offers hot, cool, and archive tiers for cost management.
• Global Accessibility – Accessible from anywhere via HTTP/HTTPS.

It’s a critical service for any Azure services explained discussion during interviews.

28. What are the key differences between Azure App Service and Azure Functions?

Answer: Both Azure App Service and Azure Functions are platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings, but differ in their use cases: 

Azure App Service: Ideal for hosting web apps, APIs, and mobile backends. Supports multiple languages like .NET, Java, Python, and Node.js.

Azure Functions: A serverless compute service that executes code based on events. It’s great for small, stateless tasks triggered by events.

When to choose:

Use App Service for full-scale web apps.

Use Functions for event-driven, microservice-based workflows.

29. What is Azure Virtual Network, and why is it important?

Answer: Azure Virtual Network (VNet) is the cornerstone of Azure’s networking services. It provides:

• Isolation – Private communication between resources.
• Connectivity – Connects on-premises systems and other VNets.
• Security – Implements network security groups (NSG) and user-defined routes.

VNets enable highly secure and scalable networking for applications hosted on Azure, making them essential in any Azure cloud computing questions.

30. What are the latest updates in Azure services that you should know?

Answer: Some of the most recent updates to Azure services include:

• Azure Arc – Extends Azure management to on-premises and multi-cloud environments.
• Azure Spring Apps – A fully managed service for building and deploying Spring Boot applications.
• Azure Communication Services – Provides APIs for integrating voice, video, and chat into apps.

These innovations highlight how Azure continues to evolve as a major player in the cloud computing space, offering more robust and scalable solutions.

Preparing for a Microsoft Azure technical interview requires a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. By focusing on core Azure services explained, deployment models, and security features, you’ll be equipped to handle a variety of Azure cloud computing questions.

For comprehensive Azure interview preparation, make sure to explore all the services and tools available on Azure, including compute, storage, networking, and security. Familiarizing yourself with real-world scenarios and keeping up-to-date with Azure updates will help you tackle questions with confidence.

Don’t forget: Azure’s landscape is constantly evolving. Stay informed, practice regularly, and you’ll be ready to ace your next interview with flying colours!

For more detailed insights and top-notch resources, check out our Microsoft Azure Administrator course at Novelvista.

Preparing for a Microsoft Azure technical interview requires a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. By focusing on core Azure services explained, deployment models, and security features, you’ll be equipped to handle a variety of Azure cloud computing questions.

For comprehensive Azure interview preparation, make sure to explore all the services and tools available on Azure, including compute, storage, networking, and security. Familiarizing yourself with real-world scenarios and keeping up-to-date with Azure updates will help you tackle questions with confidence.

Don’t forget: Azure’s landscape is constantly evolving. Stay informed, practice regularly, and you’ll be ready to ace your next interview with flying colours!

For more detailed insights and top-notch resources, check out our Microsoft Azure Administrator course at Novelvista.