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

Question 1

Your company, Contoso Ltd., is a global financial services firm with a primary data center in London and a disaster recovery site in Paris. They are migrating their on-premises SQL Server databases to Azure. The databases include: (1) a 2-TB customer database with high transaction throughput, requiring an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 30 seconds; (2) a 500-GB reporting database that is read-only and can tolerate an RPO of 1 hour and an RTO of 2 hours; (3) a 100-GB archival database that is accessed once a month. The solution must minimize costs while meeting requirements. You need to recommend a storage and database strategy for each database. What should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication for the customer database, geo-restore for the reporting database, and long-term retention for the archival database.. Option C is correct. For the customer database, Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication meets the low RPO/RTO. For the reporting database, Azure SQL Database geo-restore from geo-redundant backups meets the 1-hour RPO at lower cost. For the archival database, Azure SQL Database with long-term retention (LTR) and geo-restore is cost-effective. Option A is wrong because Azure SQL Managed Instance is more expensive and not necessary. Option B is wrong because using Cosmos DB for relational data is inappropriate. Option D is wrong because using Azure SQL Database for all with active geo-replication would be overkill and costly for the archival database.

Answer

Use Azure SQL Managed Instance for all databases with auto-failover groups.

Answer

Use Azure Cosmos DB for the customer database, Azure SQL Database for reporting, and Azure Blob Storage for archival.

Answer

Use Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication for all databases.

Question 2

AdventureWorks is a global retailer with a cloud-native architecture. They have a microservices application deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Each microservice needs to store its own data. The data requirements vary: (1) Shopping cart service: key-value data with high write throughput and low latency, data can be lost if not critical; (2) Order service: transactional data with strong consistency and ACID compliance; (3) Product catalog service: semi-structured product data that supports complex queries and is globally distributed for low-latency reads. The solution must use Azure PaaS services and minimize operational overhead. You need to design the data storage for each microservice. What should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cache for Redis for shopping cart, Azure SQL Database for orders, Azure Cosmos DB for product catalog.. Option B is correct. For the shopping cart, Azure Cache for Redis provides in-memory key-value storage with low latency. For the order service, Azure SQL Database provides ACID compliance. For the product catalog, Azure Cosmos DB provides global distribution and complex query support. Option A is wrong because Cosmos DB is not ACID-compliant for orders. Option C is wrong because Azure Table Storage is not ACID-compliant. Option D is wrong because Azure SQL Database is not ideal for high-write key-value.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB for all three services.

Answer

Azure Table Storage for shopping cart, Azure SQL Database for orders, Azure Cosmos DB for product catalog.

Answer

Azure SQL Database for all three services.

Question 3

You are the Azure architect for a healthcare organization that needs to store patient medical records (unstructured data) and provide secure access to doctors and nurses via a web application. The data must be encrypted at rest and in transit. Access must be authorized based on the requester's role (doctor, nurse, admin). The solution must be cost-effective and support high concurrency. You decide to use Azure Blob Storage. You need to design the access control mechanism. What should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure RBAC with Microsoft Entra ID authentication.. Option A is correct. Using Azure RBAC with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) allows role-based access control natively integrated with Blob Storage. This meets the requirement of role-based authorization without managing additional keys. Option B is wrong because SAS tokens are not tied to user roles. Option C is wrong because using access keys provides full access, not role-based. Option D is wrong because storage service encryption is enabled by default and doesn't provide access control.

Answer

Enable storage service encryption and use HTTPS.

Answer

Use shared access signatures (SAS) with stored access policies.

Answer

Use storage account access keys and distribute them to users.

Question 4

A multinational corporation is designing a data storage solution for its global customer data. The data must be stored in the Azure region closest to each customer to minimize latency, but all data must be accessible from a central analytics platform for reporting. The solution must also comply with data residency regulations that require customer data to remain in the country of origin. Which Azure storage solution should the company recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with multi-master writes and conflict resolution. Option C is correct because Azure Cosmos DB supports multi-region writes and data residency with a multi-master configuration, allowing data to be written in the region closest to the customer and read globally. Option A is wrong because Azure Blob Storage with geo-redundant storage (GRS) does not allow per-item residency control. Option B is wrong because Azure SQL Database with geo-replication replicates entire databases, not per-customer data. Option D is wrong because Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 is a single-region service and does not natively support multi-region data placement per customer.

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 with geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS)

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with geo-redundant storage (GRS)

Answer

Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication

Question 5

A company is designing a solution for storing sensitive financial records that must be retained for 7 years. The solution must meet the following requirements: - Data must be immutable during the retention period. - After the retention period, data must be automatically deleted. - The solution must minimize storage costs. Which two Azure services should the company use? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management. Option A is correct because Azure Blob Storage provides immutable storage with time-based retention policies. Option C is correct because Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management can automatically delete blobs after a specified period. Option B is wrong because Azure Files does not support immutable storage natively. Option D is wrong because Azure NetApp Files does not have built-in immutability or lifecycle management. Option E is wrong because Azure Purview is a data governance service, not for storage.

Answer

Microsoft Purview Data Map

Answer

Azure NetApp Files with replication

Answer

Azure Files with snapshots

Question 6

A company plans to migrate its on-premises Oracle database to Azure. The database is currently 2 TB and experiences high write throughput. The solution must support: - ACID transactions - Automatic failover to a secondary region - Minimal downtime during maintenance. Which three Azure services should the company include in the solution? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database Managed Instance. Option A is correct because Azure SQL Database Managed Instance supports native Oracle migration and ACID transactions. Option B is correct because active geo-replication provides automatic failover to a secondary region. Option D is correct because Azure SQL Database zone-redundant configuration ensures high availability within a region. Option C is wrong because Azure Cosmos DB is NoSQL and not ACID for multi-document transactions. Option E is wrong because Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not optimized for Oracle migration.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with SQL API

Answer

Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Hyperscale (Citus)

Question 7

A startup needs a cost-effective data storage solution for its application logs. The logs are accessed infrequently but must be available for audit purposes for up to 3 years. The solution should minimize storage costs while allowing data retrieval within 24 hours when needed. Which Azure storage tier should the company recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage Archive tier. The Archive tier is the most cost-effective option for data that is infrequently accessed and requires retrieval times of up to 15 hours (standard) or 24 hours (high-priority). Since the logs must be available within 24 hours and stored for up to 3 years, Archive meets both the cost and retrieval requirements, as it offers the lowest storage cost among Azure Blob Storage tiers.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage Cool tier

Answer

Azure Blob Storage Hot tier

Answer

Azure Blob Storage Premium tier

Question 8

You are designing a data storage solution for a global e-commerce platform that handles millions of transactions per day. The platform uses Azure Cosmos DB for its transactional data. The company wants to implement a real-time analytics pipeline to monitor sales trends and detect anomalies. The analytics must be performed on the transactional data with minimal latency (under 5 seconds). The solution must not impact the transactional workload's performance. The analytics queries involve aggregations over time windows and joins with reference data stored in Azure SQL Database. You need to recommend a solution. Which option should you choose?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Cosmos DB change feed to stream data to Azure Stream Analytics, which performs the aggregations and joins with reference data from Azure SQL Database.. Option A is correct because Azure Cosmos DB change feed enables real-time capture of changes, and Azure Stream Analytics can process streams with low latency and join with reference data from Azure SQL Database. Option B is wrong because Azure Data Factory is a batch ETL tool, not suitable for sub-5-second latency. Option C is wrong because Azure Synapse Link replicates data to Azure Synapse, which adds latency and is not real-time. Option D is wrong because Azure Databricks with Auto Loader is also batch-oriented and not designed for sub-5-second streaming.

Answer

Enable Azure Synapse Link for Cosmos DB and use Synapse serverless SQL to query the transactional data directly.

Answer

Use Azure Data Factory to copy data from Cosmos DB to Azure Synapse Analytics every minute, and run analytics queries in Synapse.

Answer

Use Azure Databricks with Auto Loader to incrementally load data from Cosmos DB into Delta Lake, and then query with Spark SQL.

Question 9

Refer to the exhibit. You are reviewing the configuration of an Azure Blob Storage container used for storing financial audit records. The exhibit shows the container's immutability policy and legal hold settings. You need to ensure that the audit records cannot be deleted or modified for at least 7 years. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Delete the container, create a new container, and set the immutability policy to 2555 days before locking.. Option B is correct because the immutability policy is locked at 365 days (1 year) and cannot be increased after locking; you must delete the container, create a new one, and set the immutability period to 2555 days (7 years) before locking. Option A is wrong because you cannot modify a locked policy. Option C is wrong because legal hold does not enforce a time-based retention. Option D is wrong because you cannot add more time to a locked policy.

Answer

Increase the immutability period to 2555 days by updating the policy.

Answer

Modify the immutability period to 2555 days.

Answer

Add additional legal hold tags for each year.

Question 10

A healthcare company is designing a data storage solution for its electronic health records (EHR) system. The system must store patient data in Azure SQL Database with high availability. The solution must meet the following requirements: - Data must be stored in the East US region with automatic failover to a secondary region in West US in case of a regional outage. - The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) must be less than 5 seconds. - The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) must be less than 1 hour. - The solution must minimize costs while meeting the RPO and RTO. Which Azure SQL Database configuration should the company recommend?

Accepted Answer

Deploy Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication to a secondary server in West US. Configure automatic failover using a failover group.. Option A is correct because Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with a secondary in West US meets the RPO of 5 seconds (typically 5-10 seconds) and RTO of 1 hour (failover time is usually < 30 minutes). Option B is wrong because auto-failover groups use the same replication but require a secondary in the same region for premium tiers. Option C is wrong because zone-redundant configuration provides high availability within a region, not across regions. Option D is wrong because Azure SQL Database Managed Instance does not support active geo-replication with sub-5-second RPO.

Answer

Deploy Azure SQL Database Managed Instance with failover group to a secondary instance in West US.

Answer

Deploy Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with auto-failover group and a secondary replica in a different availability zone within East US.

Answer

Deploy Azure SQL Database General Purpose tier with zone-redundant configuration.

Question 11

A company is designing a data storage solution for its IoT devices that generate telemetry data. The data is ingested at high velocity (millions of events per second) and must be stored for real-time dashboards and historical analysis. The solution must also support complex event processing and alerting. Which two Azure services should the company use together? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Event Hubs. Azure Event Hubs is the correct choice because it is a high-throughput data ingestion service designed to handle millions of events per second from IoT devices, providing low-latency, durable event capture for real-time dashboards and historical analysis. Azure Stream Analytics is the correct companion service because it natively integrates with Event Hubs to perform complex event processing (CEP), such as pattern matching, aggregation, and alerting, on the streaming telemetry data in real time.

Answer

Azure IoT Hub

Answer

Azure Synapse Analytics

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Question 12

A gaming company is developing a multiplayer online game that requires a low-latency data store for player profiles, inventory, and session state. The data is accessed globally, and the solution must support millions of concurrent players. The company expects write-heavy workloads with occasional reads. The solution must provide single-digit millisecond latency for reads and writes. The company also needs to run analytics on the data to understand player behavior, but analytics queries can tolerate higher latency (minutes). Which Azure data storage solution should the company recommend for the transactional data?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with multiple write regions. Option B is correct because Azure Cosmos DB with multi-master writes provides global low-latency access and high throughput. Option A is wrong because Azure SQL Database with geo-replication may have higher latency for writes due to replication. Option C is wrong because Azure Redis Cache is a caching layer, not a durable data store. Option D is wrong because Azure Table Storage is not designed for single-digit millisecond latency and global distribution.

Answer

Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication

Answer

Azure Redis Cache with persistence

Answer

Azure Table Storage with geo-redundancy

Question 13

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for its on-premises SQL Server databases that are critical for business operations. The databases are approximately 500 GB each. The solution must meet the following requirements: - Replicate data to Azure with minimal data loss (RPO of 15 minutes). - Automatically failover to Azure in case of an on-premises outage. - Use existing SQL Server licenses to minimize costs. Which Azure service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance with managed instance link. Option D is correct because Azure SQL Managed Instance supports managed instance link for near-real-time replication with RPO of 15 minutes and automatic failover using distributed availability groups. Option A is wrong because Azure Database Migration Service is for one-time migration, not ongoing replication. Option B is wrong because Azure Site Recovery replicates at the VM level, not database-level with SQL-specific consistency. Option C is wrong because Azure SQL Database Managed Instance does not support Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server licenses in the same way as Azure SQL Managed Instance.

Answer

Azure Site Recovery with SQL Server replication

Answer

Azure Database Migration Service (DMS)

Answer

Azure SQL Database Managed Instance with transaction replication

Question 14

A company is designing a storage solution for its backup data. The backups must be stored for 10 years for compliance reasons. The solution should minimize storage costs while ensuring data durability. Which two Azure services should the company consider? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage Archive tier. Azure Blob Storage Archive tier is correct because it provides the lowest-cost storage for data that is rarely accessed, with a 10-year retention period meeting compliance requirements. It offers 11 nines of durability (99.999999999%) by storing multiple copies across Azure regions, ensuring data integrity over the long term.

Answer

Azure Files with snapshots

Answer

Azure NetApp Files with cross-region replication

Answer

Azure Disk Storage with incremental snapshots

Question 15

A financial services company is designing a data storage solution for its transaction processing system. The system uses Azure Cosmos DB with the Core (SQL) API. The company needs to implement a change data capture (CDC) pipeline to feed a downstream analytics system in near real-time (under 1 minute). The analytics system uses Azure Synapse Analytics. The data volume is approximately 10,000 transactions per second. The solution must minimize operational complexity and cost. Which approach should the company recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Cosmos DB change feed with Azure Functions to process changes and load them into Azure Synapse Analytics using the COPY command.. Option A is correct because Azure Cosmos DB change feed can stream changes directly to Azure Functions or Stream Analytics, which can then write to Synapse via PolyBase or COPY command in near real-time. Option B is wrong because Azure Data Factory is batch-oriented and may not meet the <1 minute latency requirement. Option C is wrong because Azure Databricks with Change Feed adds complexity and cost. Option D is wrong because Azure Synapse Link is designed for analytical queries on Cosmos DB data but does not provide a CDC stream to Synapse; it replicates data into Synapse for querying, but the latency may vary.

Answer

Enable Azure Synapse Link for Cosmos DB and query the transactional data directly from Synapse serverless SQL.

Answer

Use Azure Data Factory to schedule incremental copy from Cosmos DB to Synapse every minute.

Answer

Use Azure Databricks with Spark Structured Streaming to read from Cosmos DB change feed and write to Synapse.