You need to deploy multiple identical virtual machines with consistent configuration. Which approach is most efficient?

Correct answer: Use Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template

Option D is correct because Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are declarative JSON files that define the desired state of Azure infrastructure, enabling repeatable, consistent deployments of multiple identical resources simultaneously, and they support parameterization to customize configurations across environments without manual intervention. Option A is wrong because manually creating each VM is error-prone, time-consuming, and does not scale; it also fails to provide an auditable infrastructure-as-code record of the configuration. Option B is incorrect because while using Azure CLI with a for loop can automate repetitive creation tasks, it is an imperative approach that is harder to maintain, lacks idempotency guarantees, and is less efficient than a single ARM template deployment for identical resources. Option C is wrong because snapshot restore is used to recover existing VM disk states rather than to provision new identical VMs from a baseline configuration template.