AZ-900 Practice Question 33: Shared Responsibility PaaS IaaS
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) · Test 4 · question 3 of 10
A company runs two databases: one is a SQL Server instance it installed on an Azure virtual machine, and the other is Azure SQL Database, a managed PaaS service. Who is responsible for applying database engine patches in each case?
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Answer:
Microsoft uses this exact pair as its worked example of the shared responsibility model. With a cloud SQL database, the provider maintains the actual database, while you remain responsible for the data ingested into it. If instead you deploy a virtual machine and install a SQL database on it yourself, you are responsible for database patches and updates as well as the data. IaaS places the most responsibility on the consumer; SaaS places the most on the provider; PaaS sits in the middle.
Option A forgets the IaaS half: renting a VM means owning everything above the hypervisor, including anything you install on it. Option B is a half-truth built as a trap; the *information and data* stored in the cloud really are always yours, along with your endpoints and your accounts and identities, but patching a database *engine* is a different responsibility that does shift by service model. Option C simply reverses the two cases.
Reference: Describe the shared responsibility model