Microsoft Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate AZ-800 New Questions

In the Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure materials (hybrid security and IaaS management), Just-In-Time (JIT) VM access from Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the prescribed way to require approval-based, time-bound Remote Desktop access to Azure VMs. The guide explains that JIT “locks down inbound traffic to management ports (for example, TCP/3389) and opens them only on request, for a limited time and only from approved source IPs.” Administrators request access; upon approval, Defender for Cloud creates a temporary NSG rule that expires automatically—you specify the maximum allowed window (e.g., 2 hours) and the ports. This matches the requirement: “Ensure that server administrators request approval before they can establish a Remote Desktop connection to an Azure virtual machine. If the request is approved, the connection must be established within two hours.” Alternatives don’t meet this: PIM governs Azure roles, not VM RDP port exposure; Azure Bastion provides secure RDP/SSH over TLS without public IPs but doesn’t provide approval/time-boxed gating; the Remote Desktop extension is for classic Cloud Services and not for policy-driven approval windows. JIT is the least-privilege, policy-enforced solution aligned with the exam’s hybrid security objectives.

Within the hybrid governance section of Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure, Microsoft specifies that Azure Arc–enabled servers are the mechanism to bring on-premises and multi-cloud servers under Azure control to apply Azure Policy (Guest Configuration) and Defender for Servers. The prerequisite is installing the Azure Connected Machine agent (Azure Arc agent) on each server: “To manage servers with Azure Policy and configuration management, install the Connected Machine agent to onboard them to Azure Arc; once connected, you can assign Azure Policy guest configuration and monitor compliance just like Azure VMs.” Hybrid Azure AD Join is unrelated to Azure Policy assignment; the Azure Monitor agent provides telemetry but does not onboard to Arc for policy governance; a hybrid runbook worker is for Automation runbooks, not for enforcing Azure Policy. Therefore, to “use Azure Policy to enforce configuration management policies on the servers in Azure and on-premises,” deploy the Azure Connected Machine agent to all servers to Arc-enable them and then assign the desired policies.

In the Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure materials (AZ-800), Microsoft explains that Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSAs) are designed for services running on multiple servers and “provide automatic password management, simplified SPN management, and the ability to delegate the management to other administrators.” The guidance further states that before you can create any gMSA, “the domain must have a KDS root key so that the Key Distribution Service can generate and rotate strong, unique passwords for gMSAs on a schedule.” After the KDS root key is created, “use New-ADServiceAccount to create the gMSA and grant the computers (e.g., web servers) permission to retrieve the account password.” For IIS, the course notes specify that a gMSA can be used for app pools: “Configure the IIS application pool identity to a custom account and specify the gMSA name (ending with ‘$’) without a password; the password is managed automatically by AD and rotates by policy (for example, every 30 days).”

Mapping these requirements to the scenario: Webapp1 runs on WEB1 and WEB2 and must use the same service account with an automatic 30-day password change. Therefore, the correct sequence is: create the KDS root key, create the gMSA, and then set the IIS application pool to run under that account. This fulfills the security requirement while allowing both web servers to share the same, automatically-rotated credentials.

The exam content for Group Policy processing stresses User Group Policy loopback processing for session hosts (RDS/AVD): “In environments like Remote Desktop Session Host (or Azure Virtual Desktop), enable loopback processing on the OU that contains the session host computers so that user settings from that GPO apply when users log on to those computers, regardless of the user’s own OU.” The requirement states: “Apply GPO4 to the Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts. Ensure that Azure Virtual Desktop user sessions lock after being idle for 10 minutes. Users must be able to control the lockout time manually from their client computer.” The idle-lock is a user configuration setting that must apply when users sign in to the session hosts, not to their personal devices. Therefore, enable loopback processing (Merge/Replace) in GPO4, which is linked to the VirtualDesktops OU containing the session hosts. Using security filtering or Enforced cannot make user settings in GPO4 override the user’s own OU without loopback. Loopback ensures the AVD hosts impose the 10-minute lock for sessions, while leaving users free to set their own client device policies independently—fulfilling least-impact design.