AZ-305 Practice Exam 1 — 20 Questions

Question 1

Your company is designing a hybrid network architecture that connects multiple on-premises sites to Azure. You need to ensure high availability and redundancy for the connection. Which TWO solutions should you recommend? (Choose two.)

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Deploy two ExpressRoute circuits in active-passive mode. Deploying two ExpressRoute circuits in active-passive mode provides redundancy for the on-premises-to-Azure connection. If the primary circuit fails, traffic automatically fails over to the passive circuit, ensuring high availability. Option C is correct because an Azure VPN Gateway in active-active mode uses two active tunnels to provide redundancy and load balancing, which is essential for a highly available hybrid network.

Answer

Implement Azure DNS Private Resolver for resolution

Answer

Use a single VPN gateway with active-standby mode

Answer

Use a single ExpressRoute circuit with a VPN gateway as failover

Question 2

A company runs a critical application on Azure VMs in a single region. The application writes data to Azure SQL Database (PaaS) and Azure Blob Storage. The company needs a disaster recovery plan with an RPO of less than 5 minutes for the database and less than 15 minutes for the blob storage, and an RTO of less than 1 hour for the entire solution. What should they recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery for VMs, active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database, and read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) for Blob Storage.. Azure Site Recovery provides the VM replication needed to meet the RTO of under 1 hour, active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database offers a configurable RPO of as low as 5 seconds (well under the 5-minute requirement), and RA-GRS for Blob Storage provides read-access to a secondary region with an RPO typically under 15 minutes, enabling fast failover and read access during a disaster.

Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery for VMs, geo-replication for Azure SQL Database, and geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage.

Answer

Use Azure Backup for VMs, geo-redundant storage for SQL Database backups, and geo-redundant storage for Blob Storage.

Answer

Use Azure Front Door with multi-region deployment of VMs and Azure Cosmos DB for the database.

Question 3

A company runs an SAP HANA database on Azure large instances (HLI) in the West US region. The database is critical for business operations. They need a disaster recovery solution with a recovery point objective (RPO) of near zero (seconds) and a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 30 minutes in the event of a region-wide outage. The solution must automatically replicate data to a secondary region (East US) and support automated failover. Which design should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Configure HANA System Replication (async) between the primary and secondary site, and use a Pacemaker cluster with Azure Load Balancer to enable automated failover. HANA System Replication (async) provides near-zero RPO by continuously replicating log changes to the secondary region, while a Pacemaker cluster with Azure Load Balancer enables automated failover within the required 30-minute RTO. This combination meets the strict RPO/RTO requirements for SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances, as Azure Site Recovery does not support HLI and synchronous replication would introduce unacceptable latency over the West US to East US distance.

Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the HANA large instance VMs with a replication frequency of 30 seconds and enable auto-failover

Answer

Schedule HANA database backups every 5 minutes to Azure Blob Storage with geo-redundant storage (GRS), and restore in the secondary region on demand

Answer

Set up HANA System Replication with synchronous mode to the secondary region

Question 4

A company uses Microsoft Entra ID and wants to enforce that all users must use multi-factor authentication (MFA) when accessing sensitive applications. However, they want to exclude users when connecting from the corporate office IP range and only allow access from devices that are compliant with Intune policies. Which Microsoft Entra ID feature should they use to create this policy?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Conditional Access. C is correct because Microsoft Entra ID Conditional Access is the feature specifically designed to enforce granular access policies based on conditions such as user, location, device compliance, and application sensitivity. By configuring a Conditional Access policy, you can require MFA for sensitive applications, exclude the corporate office IP range, and restrict access to Intune-compliant devices, all within a single policy.

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Identity Protection

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance

Question 5

A company stores log data in Azure Blob Storage. Logs are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then rarely accessed but must be retained for 7 years for compliance. They want to minimize storage costs. Which storage tier and lifecycle management rule should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use the Hot tier for initial storage, and a lifecycle rule to move to Archive after 30 days.. The Hot tier is optimal for frequent access during the first 30 days, and a lifecycle rule moving directly to Archive after 30 days minimizes costs by immediately transitioning to the lowest-cost storage tier for long-term retention. The Archive tier is the most cost-effective for data that is rarely accessed and must be retained for 7 years, as it offers the lowest storage cost but higher retrieval latency and cost.

Answer

Use the Cool tier for initial storage, and a lifecycle rule to move to Archive after 30 days.

Answer

Use the Hot tier for initial storage, and a lifecycle rule to move to the Cool tier after 30 days, then to Archive after 7 years.

Answer

Use the Archive tier for initial storage, and a lifecycle rule to move to Hot for the first 30 days.

Question 6

A company runs a critical application on Azure virtual machines (VMs) in the West US region. They need a disaster recovery solution that replicates the VMs to East US with a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The application consists of multiple VMs, and the company needs to be able to fail over a single VM without impacting others during an actual disaster. They also want to periodically test the recovery process without affecting the production environment. Which Azure Site Recovery feature should they use to enable non-disruptive testing?

Accepted Answer

Test failover. Test failover (Option C) is the correct feature because it allows you to validate your disaster recovery process by creating an isolated copy of your replicated VMs in a separate test network, without impacting the ongoing replication or the production environment. This directly meets the requirement for periodic, non-disruptive testing while maintaining the RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 2 hours.

Answer

Recovery Plans

Answer

Planned failover

Answer

Network mapping

Question 7

A company uses Microsoft Entra ID. They want to allow external business partners to request access to a specific internal application. The access must be time-limited and require approval from a manager within the partner's organization. Additionally, access should automatically expire after the defined period. Which Microsoft Entra ID feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Entitlement Management. Microsoft Entra ID Entitlement Management enables organizations to manage access requests for internal and external users through access packages. It supports time-limited access with automatic expiration and allows delegation of approval to a manager within the partner's organization via connected organizations. This directly meets the requirement for external partner self-service access with time-bound, approved access.

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID B2B Collaboration

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance

Answer

Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management (PIM)

Question 8

A company wants to deploy a web application on Azure virtual machines (VMs). The application experiences variable traffic patterns, so the company needs to automatically add or remove VM instances based on CPU utilization. They also want the application to remain highly available even if an Azure datacenter fails. Which combination of Azure services should they use?

Accepted Answer

Virtual Machine Scale Sets configured with autoscale rules based on CPU and distributed across availability zones. Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) with autoscale rules based on CPU utilization automatically add or remove VM instances to match variable traffic patterns. Distributing the VMSS across availability zones ensures the application remains highly available even if an entire Azure datacenter fails, because availability zones are physically separate datacenters within a region.

Answer

Azure App Service with autoscale rules and deployment slots

Answer

Azure Load Balancer with a backend pool of VMs and autoscale rules applied to individual VMSS

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager with endpoints in separate regions and Manual scaling of VMs

Question 9

A company stores large amounts of log data in Azure Blob Storage. Logs are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then rarely accessed afterward, but must be retained for 7 years for compliance. The company wants to minimize storage costs. They need to configure automatic data movement and retention policies. Which combination of Azure Blob Storage access tiers and lifecycle management policy should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use Hot tier for 30 days, then use Archive tier for the remaining period, with a lifecycle rule to delete after 7 years.. It uses the Hot tier for the first 30 days to handle frequent access, then automatically moves data to the Archive tier via a lifecycle management rule to minimize costs for rarely accessed data, and finally deletes the blobs after 7 years to meet compliance retention requirements. The Archive tier offers the lowest storage cost for long-term retention, making it ideal for logs that are rarely accessed after the initial period.

Answer

Use Hot tier for 30 days, then use Cool tier for 7 years, with a lifecycle rule to delete after 7 years.

Answer

Use Cool tier for 30 days, then use Archive tier for 7 years, no lifecycle rule needed.

Answer

Use Archive tier immediately, with a lifecycle rule to delete after 7 years.

Question 10

A company runs a SQL Server database on an Azure VM in West Europe. They need to back up the database daily and retain backups for 7 years for compliance. They also require the ability to restore the database to a secondary Azure region (North Europe) if the primary region fails. They want to minimize operational overhead and costs. Which Azure Backup configuration should they use?

Accepted Answer

A. Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore (CRR) for Azure VMs allows you to restore SQL Server databases hosted on Azure VMs to a paired secondary region (North Europe) in the event of a disaster, while retaining backups for up to 10 years (covering the 7-year compliance requirement). This configuration minimizes operational overhead by using Azure Backup's native policy-based scheduling and storage management, and it is cost-effective as it uses geo-redundant storage (GRS) for the Recovery Services vault without needing a separate backup infrastructure.

Answer

B

Answer

C

Answer

D

Question 11

A global e-commerce company uses Azure Cosmos DB to store its product catalog. The catalog is read-heavy, with users worldwide expecting consistent reads with a 99th percentile latency under 10 ms. Writes to the catalog are performed by a central admin team in one region. The company needs to minimize write latency and cost while ensuring that users always see the same data within a single session. Which Cosmos DB configuration should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

Single-master write region with Session consistency and multiple read regions. Session consistency provides the required 'read your own writes' guarantee within a single session, which ensures users always see the same data during their session without the latency and cost penalties of Strong consistency. Single-master writes minimize write latency by directing all writes to one region (the central admin team's region), while multiple read regions allow global users to read from the nearest region with sub-10 ms latency. This configuration balances cost, performance, and consistency needs for a read-heavy catalog with centralized writes.

Answer

Single-master write region with Strong consistency and multiple read regions

Answer

Multi-master write with Eventual consistency and all regions enabled for writes

Answer

Multi-master write with Strong consistency and two regions

Question 12

A company runs a mission-critical SQL Server database on an Azure virtual machine using SQL Server Standard Edition. They need a disaster recovery solution that replicates the database to a secondary Azure region with a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour. The solution must support non-disruptive disaster recovery drills. The company cannot modify the SQL Server configuration or use Always On features due to licensing constraints. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) replicates the entire VM (including the SQL Server database) to a secondary Azure region, meeting the RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 1 hour. It supports non-disruptive disaster recovery drills by allowing test failovers in an isolated network without affecting the production environment. ASR does not require any changes to SQL Server configuration or licensing, as it operates at the hypervisor level using continuous replication.

Answer

SQL Server log shipping to a VM in the secondary region

Answer

Azure Backup with cross-region restore

Answer

Azure SQL Database geo-replication

Question 13

A company is deploying a multi-tier web application on Azure VMs. The web tier must be accessible from the internet, while the application and database tiers must be isolated within the virtual network. The solution must provide SSL termination, web application firewall (WAF) capabilities, and URL-based routing. Which Azure service should they use to expose the web tier?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Application Gateway with WAF, and configure NSGs to restrict traffic between tiers.. Azure Application Gateway is a Layer 7 load balancer that provides SSL termination, a web application firewall (WAF), and URL-based routing, making it ideal for exposing a web tier to the internet. By placing the gateway in front of the web tier and configuring network security groups (NSGs) on the application and database subnets, you can isolate internal tiers while meeting all stated requirements.

Answer

Use an Azure Load Balancer and configure NSGs on each subnet.

Answer

Use Azure Firewall to inspect all traffic and allow internet traffic to the web tier.

Answer

Use Azure Front Door to expose the web tier and NSGs for internal isolation.

Question 14

A company runs a critical SQL Server database on an Azure virtual machine in the West US region. They need a disaster recovery solution that replicates the database to a secondary region (East US) with a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The solution must also support non-disruptive disaster recovery drills. The company currently uses SQL Server Standard Edition. Which Azure service should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) replicates the entire VM, including the SQL Server database, to the secondary region with an RPO as low as 15 minutes and an RTO of 2 hours when using a recovery plan. It supports non-disruptive disaster recovery drills by allowing test failovers that run in an isolated network without impacting the production environment. This makes ASR the correct choice for a SQL Server Standard Edition VM requiring cross-region DR with drills.

Answer

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

Answer

Azure Backup with cross-region restore

Answer

Azure SQL Database geo-replication

Question 15

A company stores log data in Azure Blob Storage. The logs are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then only occasionally for up to 1 year, and after that must be retained for 7 years for compliance purposes. The company wants to minimize storage costs by automatically moving data to cheaper tiers. Which Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management policy should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Move to Cool tier after 30 days, move to Archive tier after 365 days, delete after 2555 days. It aligns with the access patterns: move to Cool tier after 30 days (frequent access period), move to Archive tier after 365 days (occasional access period ends), and delete after 2555 days (7 years retention). This minimizes costs by transitioning data to progressively cheaper storage tiers and automatically deleting it when compliance retention expires.

Answer

Move to Cool tier after 30 days, move to Archive tier after 365 days, delete after 7 years

Answer

Move to Cool tier after 30 days, move to Archive tier after 30 days, delete after 2555 days

Answer

Move to Archive tier after 30 days, keep in Archive until deletion after 2555 days

Question 16

A company runs a file server on an Azure VM in the East US region. They want to back up the file shares to Azure and be able to restore individual files if accidentally deleted. They also need to be able to restore the entire file share to a secondary region (West US) in case of a regional disaster. The solution should automatically protect the file shares and provide versioning for up to 30 days. Which Azure service and configuration should they recommend?

Accepted Answer

Configure Azure Backup on the Azure file share using a Recovery Services vault with geo-redundant storage (GRS). Enable cross-region restore on the vault.. Azure Backup for Azure file shares uses a Recovery Services vault and can be configured with geo-redundant storage (GRS) to replicate backup data to a paired secondary region. Enabling cross-region restore on the vault allows restoring the entire file share to the secondary region (West US) during a regional disaster. Azure Backup automatically protects the file share with scheduled backups and provides up to 30 days of retention for point-in-time restores of individual files or the entire share.

Answer

Use Azure File Sync to sync the file share to an on-premises server, and then back up the on-premises server using Azure Backup.

Answer

Enable soft delete and versioning on the storage account, and configure replication to a secondary region using RA-GRS.

Answer

Create a scheduled Azure Automation runbook that takes snapshots of the file share every day and copy them to a storage account in West US.

Question 17

A company plans to deploy a web application on Azure virtual machines. They want to protect against a datacenter failure within a region. The VMs must be distributed across multiple physically separate locations with independent power, cooling, and networking. Which deployment option should they use?

Accepted Answer

Availability Zones. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. By deploying VMs across multiple zones, the application is protected against a single datacenter failure, meeting the requirement for fault isolation at the datacenter level.

Answer

Availability Set

Answer

Virtual Machine Scale Set

Answer

Proximity Placement Group

Question 18

A company manages a fleet of millions of IoT devices that send telemetry data every minute. The data must be stored for 10 years to meet compliance requirements. For the first 30 days, data is accessed frequently for real-time dashboards and alerting. After 30 days, data is only accessed occasionally for historical analysis and reporting. The solution must be cost-effective and support high ingestion rates. Which Azure service should the company use to store and query this data?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Explorer. Azure Data Explorer (ADX) is designed for high-ingestion, time-series telemetry data and supports real-time dashboards and alerting on fresh data, while also providing cost-effective long-term storage for historical queries. Its columnar storage and indexing enable fast analytics on billions of records, making it ideal for IoT scenarios with millions of devices sending data every minute and a 10-year retention requirement.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with SQL API

Question 19

A company runs a stateless web application on Azure VMs. They need to ensure the application remains available in the event of an entire Azure datacenter failure. They want to achieve a 99.99% SLA. Which deployment option should they recommend?

Accepted Answer

B. To survive an entire Azure datacenter failure and achieve a 99.99% SLA, the stateless web application must be deployed across at least two Azure Availability Zones within a region. Availability Zones are physically separate datacenters within the same region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Deploying VMs in a zone-redundant configuration ensures that if one datacenter fails, the application continues running in another zone, meeting the 99.99% SLA (which requires a minimum of two zones).

Answer

A

Answer

C

Answer

D

Question 20

A company runs a critical SQL Server database on an Azure virtual machine. They need a backup strategy that supports point-in-time restore down to the second and long-term retention of backups for 7 years to meet compliance. They want to offload backup management to Azure. Which backup solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VM. Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VM provides native integration that supports point-in-time restore down to the second for SQL Server databases and allows configuring long-term retention (LTR) for up to 10 years, meeting the 7-year compliance requirement. It offloads backup management to Azure by automating backup schedules, retention policies, and restore operations without requiring manual scripting or third-party tools.

Answer

Azure Site Recovery

Answer

SQL Server managed backup to Azure

Answer

Azure Disk Backup