Microsoft Azure Architect Design (AZ-301) Practice Exam 2026 - Free Azure Architect Practice Questions and Study Guide

Minimizing changes to the existing codebase while modernizing an IIS-based web application is best achieved by using Azure Container Services. This approach allows you to package your existing application code into containers, which can encapsulate the application and its dependencies, ensuring it runs consistently in various environments.

By employing containerization, you can leverage existing IIS configurations and dependencies without requiring significant restructuring of the application code. Containers also facilitate a more agile deployment process. This means you can maintain your application's core functionality while gaining the benefits of modern cloud-native environments, such as scalability, ease of management, and improved deployment workflows.

In contrast, adopting a serverless architecture would entail rewriting parts of the application to fit the serverless model, which could introduce significant changes to the code. Implementing a microservices architecture also typically involves breaking down the application into smaller, independently deployable services, likely requiring substantial modification of the existing code. Shifting to a traditional VM deployment, while keeping the application largely the same, does not provide the modern benefits of scalability and resource optimization that come with containerization, as it operates much like the current architecture without the enhancements available through cloud services.