AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Test 5 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A financial services company runs a critical SQL Server database on Azure VMs. They require a failover solution that provides automatic detection of database health issues and automatically fails over to a secondary replica in another Azure region with no data loss and sub-minute RPO. What should they use?

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

Accepted Answer

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with automatic failover. SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with automatic failover is the correct choice because it supports synchronous data replication between primary and secondary replicas, ensuring zero data loss (RPO=0) and sub-minute RPO. Automatic failover requires a quorum-based health detection mechanism (using Windows Server Failover Clustering) that monitors database health and triggers failover to a secondary replica in another Azure region without manual intervention, meeting the strict RPO and automatic failover requirements.

Answer

Azure SQL Database geo-replication

Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups

Answer

Azure Backup for SQL Server

Question 2

A company runs a stateless web application on multiple Azure VMs behind a load balancer. They want to ensure that if a VM fails, traffic is automatically redirected to healthy VMs. Which Azure service provides this functionality with health probes?

Accepted Answer

Azure Load Balancer. Azure Load Balancer (Option D) is the correct choice because it is designed to distribute traffic across multiple VMs in the same region and uses health probes (TCP or HTTP) to monitor the health of each backend VM. If a probe fails, the load balancer automatically stops sending new traffic to that VM and redirects it to the remaining healthy instances, ensuring high availability for the stateless web application.

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager

Answer

Azure Front Door

Answer

Azure Application Gateway

Question 3

A company uses Azure SQL Database for a critical OLTP workload. They need a disaster recovery solution that automatically fails over to a secondary region with an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 1 hour. What should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups. Auto-failover groups in Azure SQL Database provide automatic failover across regions, leveraging active geo-replication under the hood. This combination achieves an RPO of up to 5 seconds (from active geo-replication) and an RTO of 1 hour (from the auto-failover group). Active geo-replication alone does not automate failover, which is required for the disaster recovery solution. Zone-redundant configuration protects only within a region, not cross-region. Managed Instance failover groups are for Azure SQL Managed Instance, not for Azure SQL Database, and have different RPO/RTO characteristics.

Answer

Azure SQL Database zone-redundant configuration

Answer

Azure SQL Database active geo-replication

Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups

Question 4

A company wants to protect Azure VMs from accidental deletion or corruption by retaining daily backups for 30 days, weekly backups for 12 weeks, monthly backups for 12 months, and yearly backups for 7 years. Which backup policy type should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Backup GFS policy. Azure Backup's GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) policy is specifically designed to support multiple retention tiers with different durations—daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly—all within a single backup policy. This matches the requirement for retaining daily backups for 30 days, weekly for 12 weeks, monthly for 12 months, and yearly for 7 years, which is a classic GFS retention model.

Answer

Daily backup policy with 30-day retention

Answer

Monthly backup policy with 12-month retention

Answer

Azure Backup Enhanced policy

Question 5

A company runs a critical SAP HANA database on an Azure large instance. They need a disaster recovery solution that provides automatic failover to a secondary region with an RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 30 minutes. The solution must not require manual intervention to start replication. What should they use?

Accepted Answer

SAP HANA System Replication with HANA Pacemaker. SAP HANA System Replication with HANA Pacemaker is the correct choice because it provides automatic, synchronous or asynchronous replication of SAP HANA data to a secondary region, meeting the RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 30 minutes. HANA Pacemaker handles automatic failover without manual intervention, ensuring the database is promoted to primary in the disaster recovery region within the required timeframes. This solution is specifically designed for SAP HANA on Azure large instances, offering native integration and support for the required recovery objectives.

Answer

Azure Site Recovery with replication policy for SAP HANA

Answer

Azure NetApp Files with cross-region replication

Answer

Azure Backup for SAP HANA

Question 6

A company uses Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to run a containerized microservices application. They need a disaster recovery solution that can automatically fail over to a secondary region if the primary region fails. The solution must minimize data loss for stateful workloads. What should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is the correct choice because it provides orchestrated replication and failover for Azure VMs and physical workloads, including stateful containers running on AKS. ASR can replicate persistent volumes and application data to a secondary region, enabling automated failover with minimal data loss by using crash-consistent or app-consistent recovery points.

Answer

Azure Backup for AKS

Answer

Azure Front Door

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager

Question 7

A company needs to design a disaster recovery solution for a multi-tier application that includes a web tier, a business tier, and a database tier. The solution must meet the following requirements:
- RPO of 15 minutes for the database
- RTO of 1 hour for the entire application
- Automatic failover for the database
- No data loss for the web and business tiers (stateless)
Which TWO services should be included in the solution? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Traffic Manager. Azure SQL Database active geo-replication is correct because it provides automatic, asynchronous replication of a database to a secondary region with a configurable RPO of as low as 5 seconds, easily meeting the 15-minute RPO requirement. It also supports automatic failover with a database-level RTO typically under 1 hour, satisfying both the RTO and automatic failover requirements for the database tier. Azure Traffic Manager is correct because it enables global DNS-based traffic routing and automatic failover for stateless web and business tiers, ensuring no data loss since these tiers are stateless and can be redirected to healthy endpoints within the 1-hour RTO.

Answer

Azure Backup

Answer

Azure Site Recovery for VM replication

Answer

Azure Front Door

Question 8

A company runs an application on Azure VMs that uses Azure SQL Database. They need a disaster recovery solution that ensures the application can fail over to a secondary region with minimal data loss. The solution must include automatic failover for the database and manual failover for the VMs. Which TWO Azure services should they use? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups. The correct answers are A and D. Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups (Option A) provide automatic failover for the database to a secondary region, ensuring minimal data loss. Azure Site Recovery (Option D) replicates Azure VMs to a secondary region and supports manual failover as required. Option B (Azure Traffic Manager) is for DNS-based traffic routing, not VM replication. Option C (Azure Front Door) is a global load balancer and application delivery controller, not a disaster recovery service for VMs. Option E (Azure SQL Database active geo-replication) requires manual failover, so it does not meet the automatic failover requirement for the database.

Answer

Azure Traffic Manager

Answer

Azure Front Door

Answer

Azure SQL Database active geo-replication

Question 9

Refer to the exhibit. An administrator reviews the backup status of a VM. The last backup failed. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The VM was deallocated at the time of backup.. When a VM is deallocated (stopped and deallocated in Azure), the Azure Backup service cannot create a VM-consistent snapshot because the VM is not running. Backup attempts for deallocated VMs will fail with an error indicating that the VM is not in a running state. This is a common cause of backup failures in Azure.

Answer

The Recovery Services vault is in a different region.

Answer

The backup policy does not exist.

Answer

The source resource ID is missing.

Question 10

Your company runs a critical e-commerce application on Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) in a single region. You need to design a disaster recovery (DR) solution that meets a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour for the application tier. The application uses Azure SQL Database (single database). Which combination of Azure services should you recommend to meet the RPO and RTO?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery for VM replication to a secondary region and Azure SQL Database active geo-replication. Azure Site Recovery provides VM replication to a secondary region with RPO as low as 15 seconds and RTO typically under 1 hour, meeting the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO. Azure SQL Database active geo-replication creates a readable secondary database in another region with an RPO of 5 seconds or less and supports manual failover within minutes, satisfying the stated RPO and RTO. This combination ensures both compute and database tiers can be recovered in the secondary region within the required timeframes.

Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery for VMs and Azure SQL Database read-scale replicas

Answer

Use Azure Backup for VM replication and Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups

Answer

Use Azure Front Door with regional load balancing and Azure SQL Database geo-restore

Question 11

A healthcare organization stores patient records in Azure Blob Storage with a hot access tier in the East US region. The compliance policy requires that data be recoverable within 1 hour in the event of a regional disaster. The data is updated every 10 minutes and must be recoverable to a consistent state within 15 minutes of failure. Which configuration should you implement?

Accepted Answer

Use object replication with a minimum RPO of 15 minutes and configure read-access in the secondary region. Object replication with a minimum RPO of 15 minutes meets the compliance requirement to recover data to a consistent state within 15 minutes of failure, as it asynchronously replicates blobs with a configurable replication policy. Combined with read-access in the secondary region, it ensures data can be recovered within 1 hour during a regional disaster by allowing immediate reads from the secondary endpoint without waiting for failover.

Answer

Use RA-GRS (read-access geo-redundant storage) and configure storage account failover

Answer

Use GRS (geo-redundant storage) with automated failover

Answer

Use GZRS (geo-zone-redundant storage) with customer-managed failover

Question 12

Your company has a hybrid identity solution with Microsoft Entra ID Connect syncing on-premises Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID. You need to design a business continuity solution for the identity service in case of an on-premises outage. The solution must allow users to authenticate and access cloud applications even if the on-premises domain controllers are unavailable. Which feature should you enable?

Accepted Answer

Password hash synchronization. Password hash synchronization (PHS) is the correct choice because it synchronizes password hashes from on-premises Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID, enabling cloud authentication even when on-premises domain controllers are unavailable. During an on-premises outage, users can still authenticate against Entra ID using their synced credentials, ensuring continued access to cloud applications without dependency on local infrastructure.

Answer

Federation with AD FS in a secondary on-premises site

Answer

Seamless Single Sign-On

Answer

Pass-through authentication with an agent in a secondary on-premises site

Question 13

Which THREE Azure services can be used to implement a disaster recovery plan for Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) that meets an RTO of 2 hours and an RPO of 30 minutes? (Select THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) orchestrates replication and failover of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) session hosts and their workloads to a secondary Azure region, enabling RTO of 2 hours and RPO of 30 minutes when configured with replication policies set to 30-minute frequency. It supports multi-VM consistency groups to ensure application-consistent recovery points for AVD infrastructure components.

Answer

Azure Database for MySQL

Answer

Azure Migrate

Question 14

You are designing a business continuity solution for a mission-critical Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster. The cluster hosts a stateful application that uses Azure Disks for persistent volumes. You need to ensure that the application can be recovered in a secondary region within 1 hour of a regional failure. What should you use to replicate the persistent volumes?

Accepted Answer

Azure Site Recovery with replication of the AKS node VMs and attached disks. Azure Site Recovery (ASR) can replicate Azure VMs and their attached managed disks to a secondary region. For an AKS cluster, replicating the node VMs and their attached Azure Disks ensures that the persistent volumes (backed by Azure Disks) are available in the secondary region. Combined with AKS cluster deployment in the secondary region, this meets the 1-hour recovery time objective (RTO) for a stateful application.

Answer

Azure Disk Backup with geo-redundant storage

Answer

Azure Backup with disk snapshot policies

Answer

Azure File Sync to replicate the disk content

Question 15

Which TWO Azure services can be used together to provide a disaster recovery solution for an on-premises SQL Server database with an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 30 minutes? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database failover groups. Azure SQL Database failover groups (Option A) enable automated, geo-redundant replication of a database to a secondary region with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 30 minutes or less, meeting the specified RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 30 minutes. This service uses asynchronous replication at the database level and provides a built-in listener endpoint for automatic failover, making it suitable for disaster recovery of on-premises SQL Server databases when migrated to Azure SQL Database.

Answer

Azure Backup for SQL Server

Answer

SQL Server Log Shipping to Azure

Answer

Azure Site Recovery