Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure (AZ-204) Practice Exam

A client app requests a token for managed identities. What is the basis for this token?

1. Service principal

2. OAuth 2.0

3. Virtual machine

4. Application ID

The correct answer is: Service principal

The token for managed identities is based on the service principal. Managed identities are a feature of Azure Active Directory that provide Azure resources with an automatically managed identity in Azure AD. This capability allows the resource to authenticate to services that support Azure AD authentication without the need for explicit credentials. When a client app requests a token for a managed identity, the Azure platform uses the service principal associated with that managed identity to generate the token. The service principal acts as the identity for the Azure resource, allowing it to securely communicate and access other Azure resources and services. This process simplifies the management of credentials and enhances security by eliminating the need to store and manage secrets. In contrast, while OAuth 2.0 is the framework that underpins the authorization process for many identity and access scenarios, in this context, it is not the direct basis for the token itself. Similarly, a virtual machine may host a managed identity, but it is not the source of the token. The application ID is a unique identifier for an Azure AD application but does not serve as the basis for the token in this specific scenario.