AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Test 10 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which TWO options can be used to automatically replicate Azure SQL Database to a secondary region for disaster recovery with no data loss in the event of a regional outage?

Accepted Answer

Use auto-failover groups with data synchronization.. Auto-failover groups with data synchronization (Option A) and failover groups with automatic failover policy (Option E) are both correct because failover groups in Azure SQL Database provide automatic, synchronous replication of data to a secondary region, ensuring zero data loss during a regional outage. The automatic failover policy triggers a failover without manual intervention, and the synchronous commit mode guarantees that transactions are committed on both primary and secondary before acknowledging success, meeting the RPO=0 requirement.

Answer

Enable active geo-replication for the database.

Answer

Set up log shipping to a secondary server.

Answer

Deploy Azure Site Recovery to replicate the SQL Server VM.

Question 2

A company needs to store video files for a media streaming application. The files are accessed frequently for the first 30 days, then rarely after that. The solution must minimize storage costs while ensuring low-latency access during the initial period. Which storage tier should be used for the first 30 days?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage Hot tier. Azure Blob Storage Hot tier is designed for data that is accessed frequently, offering low-latency access (typically under 10 milliseconds for first-byte read) and the highest storage cost but lowest access cost. Since the video files require low-latency access during the first 30 days, the Hot tier meets the performance requirement while minimizing overall cost compared to Premium Blob Storage, which is optimized for sub-millisecond latency and higher IOPS scenarios.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage Cool tier

Answer

Azure Premium Blob Storage

Answer

Azure Blob Storage Archive tier

Question 3

A company uses Azure SQL Database for a line-of-business application. They need to implement a disaster recovery solution across Azure regions with RPO of 5 seconds and RTO of 30 seconds. Which feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Active geo-replication. Active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database provides a continuous replication mechanism with an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 30 seconds when using a readable secondary replica in a paired region. It replicates transactions asynchronously but with very low latency, meeting the strict RPO/RTO requirements for cross-region disaster recovery.

Answer

Geo-restore

Answer

Azure SQL Database zone-redundant configuration

Answer

Auto-failover groups

Question 4

A company is designing a data storage solution for an IoT pipeline that ingests time-series data from millions of devices. The data is append-only and queried by time range. The solution must support low-latency queries and automated retention policies. Which Azure data store should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Explorer (ADX). Azure Data Explorer (ADX) is purpose-built for interactive analytics on large volumes of streaming, time-series data. It supports append-only ingestion, low-latency queries over time ranges via its Kusto Query Language (KQL), and native automated retention policies (e.g., soft-delete and hard-delete periods) without manual management.

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Question 5

A company needs to store sensitive customer data in Azure Blob Storage. They require encryption at rest using customer-managed keys (CMK) stored in Azure Key Vault. Additionally, they want to prevent data from being accessed if the key is revoked. Which feature should they enable?

Accepted Answer

Storage Service Encryption (SSE). Storage Service Encryption (SSE) encrypts data at rest in Azure Blob Storage. When combined with customer-managed keys (CMK) in Azure Key Vault, revoking the key renders the data inaccessible because the encryption key is no longer available. Thus, SSE with CMK is the feature that prevents data access upon key revocation. Customer Lockbox controls Microsoft engineer access, not data access due to key revocation.

Answer

Azure Defender for Storage

Answer

Customer Lockbox for Azure Storage

Answer

Azure Files with AD DS authentication

Question 6

A company uses Azure Cosmos DB for a globally distributed e-commerce application. They need to ensure that write operations in one region are immediately visible in all other regions. Which consistency level should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Strong. Strong consistency ensures that write operations are synchronously replicated across all regions before acknowledging the write. This guarantees that any read operation in any region returns the most recent write, providing linearizability. For a globally distributed e-commerce application requiring immediate visibility of writes, Strong consistency is the correct choice.

Answer

Session

Answer

Eventual

Answer

Bounded staleness

Question 7

A company is designing a hybrid storage solution to connect on-premises file shares to Azure. They need to cache frequently accessed files locally for low-latency access while storing all files in Azure. The solution must support SMB protocol and integrate with existing Windows file servers. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure File Sync. Azure File Sync is the correct choice because it enables caching of frequently accessed files on-premises via a sync agent installed on Windows Server, while all files are stored in Azure Files. This provides low-latency access for local users and supports SMB protocol, seamlessly integrating with existing Windows file servers through a cloud tiering feature that keeps only hot files locally.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0 support

Answer

Azure Files

Answer

Azure NetApp Files

Question 8

A company is migrating on-premises SQL Server databases to Azure. They need to minimize administrative overhead for patching and backups while ensuring high availability. The solution must support automatic failover within the same Azure region. Which Azure service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database Managed Instance. Azure SQL Database Managed Instance is correct because it provides near-100% compatibility with on-premises SQL Server, automated patching and backups, and built-in high availability with automatic failover within the same region via Always On availability groups. This minimizes administrative overhead while meeting the high availability requirement without manual configuration.

Answer

SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

Answer

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale

Answer

Azure SQL Database (single database)

Question 9

A company stores petabytes of sensor data in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. They need to run complex analytics queries that involve joining multiple datasets and aggregating time-series data. The queries must complete within seconds. Which Azure service should they use for querying?

Accepted Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics. Azure Synapse Analytics (Option C) is correct because it provides a unified analytics platform that can directly query petabyte-scale data in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using T-SQL or Spark, and its distributed query engine (PolyBase or Synapse SQL) can perform complex joins and time-series aggregations with sub-second response times when combined with appropriate indexing and materialized views.

Answer

Azure Stream Analytics

Answer

Azure Data Explorer

Answer

Azure Databricks

Question 10

A company uses Azure Redis Cache to improve the performance of a web application. They need to ensure that cached data survives a failover to a secondary region. Which Azure Redis Cache tier should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Premium tier. The Premium tier of Azure Redis Cache supports geo-replication, which enables data to be replicated across paired regions. This ensures that cached data survives a failover to a secondary region, meeting the requirement for disaster recovery. The Standard tier only provides replication within a single region, while the Basic tier offers no replication at all.

Answer

Standard tier

Answer

Basic tier

Answer

Enterprise tier

Question 11

Which TWO data storage solutions in Azure provide built-in, automatic geo-redundancy for disaster recovery across paired regions?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database (active geo-replication). Azure SQL Database's active geo-replication automatically creates a readable secondary database in a paired Azure region, enabling synchronous or asynchronous replication for disaster recovery. Azure Blob Storage with GRS or RA-GRS replicates data to a paired secondary region automatically, ensuring durability even during a regional outage. Both services provide built-in geo-redundancy without manual configuration beyond selecting the replication option.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB (default)

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Answer

Azure Files (standard tier)

Question 12

Which THREE considerations are important when designing a data storage solution for a high-throughput IoT ingestion pipeline in Azure?

Accepted Answer

Ingestion throughput limits of the storage service. Azure Storage services like Blob Storage and Event Hubs have defined ingestion throughput limits (e.g., up to 20 MB/s per partition or 1 MB/s per ingress for standard-tier Event Hubs). Exceeding these limits causes throttling (HTTP 429 errors) and data loss, making throughput capacity a critical design consideration for high-throughput IoT pipelines.

Answer

Network latency between devices and Azure

Answer

Data consistency levels required by downstream consumers

Question 13

Which TWO Azure services can be used to store unstructured data such as documents, images, and videos?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage. Azure Blob Storage is designed for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as documents, images, and videos, as objects (blobs) in a flat namespace. It supports three types of blobs (block, append, and page) and provides REST APIs for access, making it ideal for scalable, cost-effective storage of binary and text data.

Answer

Azure Files

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Question 14

A company plans to store operational logs from Azure App Services in a scalable and cost-effective way. The logs must be retained for 90 days and then automatically deleted. Which Azure data storage solution should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure Log Analytics Workspace. Azure Log Analytics Workspace is the correct choice because it natively ingests operational logs from Azure App Services via diagnostic settings, provides a scalable and cost-effective storage tier with a 90-day retention policy that can be configured to automatically delete data after the retention period expires. It also supports Kusto Query Language (KQL) for analysis and integrates with Azure Monitor for alerting, making it purpose-built for log storage and management.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with lifecycle management

Answer

Azure SQL Database with retention policy

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with TTL

Question 15

A global e-commerce company uses Azure Cosmos DB for its product catalog. The write-heavy workload experiences high latency during peak hours. Which design change would most reduce write latency?

Accepted Answer

Enable multiple write regions. Enabling multiple write regions allows writes to be accepted by the nearest regional replica, reducing cross-region network latency for write-heavy workloads. This is the most direct architectural change to lower write latency globally, as it avoids the round-trip to a single write region.

Answer

Change the default consistency level to eventual

Answer

Partition the container by a different key

Answer

Increase the request units (RUs) per container