AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A software company hosts 100 small Azure SQL databases for different clients. Each database has low average usage but experiences unpredictable spikes. The company wants to minimize costs while allowing each database to burst up to a maximum resource limit during spikes. They also need to easily add new databases without manual sizing. Which Azure SQL Database deployment option should they use?

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

Accepted Answer

Elastic pools. Elastic pools allow multiple databases with low average usage and unpredictable spikes to share a fixed pool of resources (eDTUs or eVCores), enabling each database to burst up to a maximum limit while minimizing overall cost. This model also supports easy addition of new databases without manual sizing, as they are simply added to the pool and share its allocated resources.

Answer

Single databases with DTU-based tiers

Answer

Managed Instance

Answer

Hyperscale single database

Question 2

A company runs a global e-commerce application that needs to store product catalog data. The data is JSON documents with variable schemas. The application requires single-digit millisecond read and write latencies at any scale and must support automatic synchronous replication across multiple Azure regions for high availability and low latency reads from any region. Which Azure data service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes. Azure Cosmos DB is the best choice because it natively supports JSON documents with variable schemas and guarantees single-digit millisecond response times. It provides automatic multi-region replication via multiple write regions, enabling active-active configuration for high availability and low-latency reads from any region. However, note that multi-region writes replicate asynchronously, not synchronously; the stem's use of 'synchronous replication' is inaccurate.

Answer

Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication

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Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure Database for PostgreSQL with read replicas

Question 3

A company runs a SQL Server database on an Azure virtual machine in a single region. They need to increase storage capacity and improve I/O performance for their transaction-intensive workload. They also want to ensure high availability within the same datacenter (99.99% SLA). What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Deploy the SQL Server on an availability set and use Storage Spaces Direct with multiple disks.. To achieve 99.99% availability within a single datacenter, you need multiple VMs in an availability set. Option C combines an availability set with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), which uses multiple disks across VMs to provide both performance (through disk pooling) and high availability (via mirroring). This meets all requirements: increased storage capacity, improved I/O performance, and 99.99% SLA. Option A only addresses disk performance and redundancy but fails to provide VM-level redundancy, which is necessary for the SLA.

Answer

Use Azure Premium SSD v2 managed disks in a storage pool with mirroring across multiple disks.

Answer

Use Azure Ultra Disk storage attached to the VM.

Answer

Enable Azure SQL Managed Instance with auto-failover groups.

Question 4

A company wants to migrate its on-premises file server to Azure. The application accesses files using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and requires identity-based access integrated with on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). The solution must be fully managed and provide low latency for users within the same region. Which Azure solution should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Files with Active Directory authentication and Azure File Sync.. Azure Files with Active Directory authentication and Azure File Sync is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed SMB file share that supports identity-based access using on-premises AD DS. Azure File Sync enables caching of frequently accessed files on-premises or in Azure, reducing latency for users in the same region while maintaining a single namespace. This solution meets all requirements: SMB protocol, identity-based access, fully managed service, and low latency.

Answer

Azure NetApp Files with SMB volumes.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0 support.

Answer

Azure Managed Disk with a file server VM.

Question 5

A company ingests IoT sensor data into Azure Blob Storage. Data is written frequently and accessed rarely after the first 24 hours. The company must retain the data for exactly 90 days for compliance. They want to minimize storage costs by automatically moving data to cheaper tiers as soon as possible. Which lifecycle management policy should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Move to Cool tier after 1 day and then to Archive after 30 days. It aligns with the access pattern: data is frequently accessed only in the first 24 hours, so moving to Cool tier after 1 day (when access drops) saves costs, then moving to Archive after 30 days meets the 90-day retention requirement while minimizing storage costs. The lifecycle policy must ensure data is not moved to Archive before the compliance period ends, and moving to Cool immediately (0 days) would incur unnecessary write costs for frequently written data.

Answer

Move to Cool tier immediately (0 days) and then to Archive after 30 days

Answer

Move to Archive tier after 1 day

Answer

Move to Cool tier after 30 days and to Archive after 90 days

Question 6

A company runs a global e-commerce application that stores customer order data. The data must be highly available and durable. The application requires strong consistency for all reads and writes. The company needs to store relational data (orders, customers) and handle complex queries with joins. They want a fully managed database service that supports active geo-replication for disaster recovery across two Azure regions with automatic failover. Which Azure database service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication. Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed relational database service that supports strong consistency, complex queries with joins, and active geo-replication across two Azure regions with automatic failover for disaster recovery. Active geo-replication creates readable secondary replicas in a paired region, and the application can manually or programmatically initiate failover to ensure high availability and durability while maintaining transactional consistency.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB with multiple write regions and strong consistency

Answer

Azure Database for MySQL with read replicas

Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance with failover groups

Question 7

A company stores terabytes of archival data that must be retained for 10 years per regulatory requirements. The data is accessed infrequently (once or twice per year) and retrieval latency of up to 5 hours is acceptable. The company wants the lowest storage cost. They also need to ensure data is encrypted at rest and immutability to prevent deletion or modification during the retention period. Which Azure storage solution should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Archive tier and immutability policy (time-based retention). Azure Blob Storage's Archive tier offers the lowest storage cost for infrequently accessed data, and the immutability policy with time-based retention provides WORM (Write Once, Read Many) compliance to prevent deletion or modification for the required 10-year period. The 5-hour retrieval latency is acceptable for archival data accessed once or twice per year, and encryption at rest is automatically enabled for all Azure Blob Storage tiers.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Hot tier and lifecycle management to Archive tier with WORM policy

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with Cool tier and lifecycle management to Archive tier with legal hold

Answer

Azure Files with premium tier and soft delete

Question 8

A company runs a SQL Server database on an Azure virtual machine. They need to increase the storage capacity and improve I/O performance for their transaction log. The current data disk is a standard HDD. They want to achieve higher IOPS and throughput without increasing the size of the VM (the VM size supports up to 8 data disks). The database workload is write-intensive on the transaction log. Which configuration should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Replace the standard HDD disk with a premium SSD disk for the log drive. Replacing the standard HDD with a premium SSD directly addresses the need for higher IOPS and throughput for a write-intensive transaction log. Premium SSDs provide consistent low-latency performance and significantly higher IOPS/throughput compared to standard HDDs, without requiring a VM size change. Since the VM supports up to 8 data disks, a single premium SSD can meet the performance requirements more effectively than adding more HDDs.

Answer

Add additional standard HDD disks and configure a storage pool with simple (striping) layout

Answer

Add a premium SSD disk and configure a storage space with mirroring for the log drive

Answer

Use Azure Disk Encryption to improve performance

Question 9

A company is migrating a large on-premises SQL Server database to Azure SQL Managed Instance. They need to minimize downtime during migration. The database is 500 GB and the network link is 1 Gbps. Which migration approach should they recommend?

Accepted Answer

Use Azure Database Migration Service with online migration. Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) with online migration mode uses continuous change data capture (CDC) to synchronize ongoing changes from the on-premises SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance, minimizing downtime to a brief cutover window. This approach is ideal for a 500 GB database over a 1 Gbps link, as it avoids the lengthy full data transfer required by offline methods.

Answer

Perform offline backup and restore

Answer

Use transactional replication

Answer

Export BACPAC and import

Question 10

A company stores petabytes of image files for a content delivery network. The images are accessed frequently for the first week, then rarely afterward. They must be retained for 5 years for compliance. The company wants to minimize storage costs while maintaining performance for frequently accessed data. Which storage solution and tier strategy should they recommend?

Accepted Answer

Azure Blob Storage with a lifecycle policy: Hot for 7 days, Cool for the remainder of 5 years. Azure Blob Storage with a lifecycle policy is the correct solution because it automatically transitions blobs from the Hot tier (for frequent access during the first week) to the Cool tier (for rare access over the remaining 5 years), minimizing storage costs while maintaining low-latency performance for the initial high-access period. The Hot tier provides high throughput and low access costs for frequently read data, while the Cool tier offers lower storage costs for infrequently accessed data, meeting both performance and compliance retention requirements.

Answer

Azure Files with premium tier

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 with hot tier only

Answer

Azure Blob Storage with archive tier from day 1

Question 11

A company ingests millions of IoT sensor data points per second. They need a fully managed analytics service optimized for time-series data that can ingest high-velocity data, perform real-time analytics, and store data for historical analysis. The solution must integrate with Azure Stream Analytics for stream processing. Which Azure data service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Data Explorer (ADX). Azure Data Explorer (ADX) is the correct choice because it is a fully managed, high-performance analytics service optimized for time-series and log data. It can ingest millions of IoT sensor data points per second, perform real-time analytics with sub-second query latency, and store data for historical analysis. ADX natively integrates with Azure Stream Analytics for stream processing, making it ideal for this scenario.

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Answer

Azure Blob Storage

Question 12

A company needs to store large amounts of unstructured file data (documents, images) that is accessed concurrently from hundreds of Azure VMs. The data must be accessible via the SMB protocol and provide low-latency, high-throughput performance. The solution must be fully managed and support up to 1000 simultaneous connections. Which Azure storage solution should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Files (Premium tier). Azure Files (Premium tier) is correct because it provides fully managed SMB file shares with low-latency, high-throughput performance suitable for concurrent access from hundreds of Azure VMs. Premium file shares are backed by SSD storage and support more than 1000 simultaneous connections per share (up to 2000), meeting the stated requirements for unstructured file data accessed via SMB.

Answer

Azure Blob Storage

Answer

Azure NetApp Files

Answer

Azure Managed Disks

Question 13

A company runs a large-scale write-intensive application that requires a horizontally scalable relational database. They need to distribute data across multiple nodes to handle high write throughput while supporting SQL queries, including joins and transactions. The solution must be fully managed and provide elastic scaling. Which Azure database service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Hyperscale (Citus). Azure Database for PostgreSQL Hyperscale (Citus) is the correct choice because it provides horizontal scaling (sharding) across multiple worker nodes using the Citus extension, which distributes data and parallelizes SQL queries. It supports full SQL, including joins and transactions, while offering elastic scaling for write-intensive workloads. This makes it ideal for large-scale relational databases that need high write throughput and horizontal scalability.

Answer

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale

Answer

Azure Cosmos DB

Answer

Azure SQL Managed Instance

Question 14

A global e-commerce company runs a product catalog application that requires low-latency reads and writes from multiple geographic regions. The data is key-value structured and must be replicated with multi-region write capability. The company needs a fully managed NoSQL database service with guaranteed 99th percentile latency and automatic conflict resolution. Which Azure data service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB is the correct choice because it is a fully managed NoSQL database that supports multi-region writes with automatic conflict resolution, guarantees 99th percentile latency, and provides low-latency reads and writes globally. Its multi-master replication and tunable consistency models meet the key-value structured data requirements and the need for high availability across geographic regions.

Answer

Azure Table Storage

Answer

Azure Redis Cache

Answer

Azure SQL Database

Question 15

A company stores unstructured data such as documents and images in Azure Blob Storage. The data is accessed frequently for the first month, then only rarely for the next year, and after that must be retained for 10 years for compliance. The company wants to minimize storage costs by automatically moving data to the most cost-effective storage tiers. Which Azure Blob Storage feature should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Lifecycle management policies. Lifecycle management policies in Azure Blob Storage allow you to automatically transition blobs to cooler tiers (e.g., from Hot to Cool, then to Archive) based on age or last modification time. This directly matches the requirement to move data from frequent access (first month) to rare access (next year) and then to long-term retention (10 years) while minimizing costs.

Answer

Azure Data Lake Storage access tiers

Answer

Soft delete

Answer

Immutability policies