DP-300 Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment Practice Test 10 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You are designing high availability for a critical Azure SQL Database. The database is 1 TB in size and requires an RPO of 0 (zero data loss) and an RTO of less than 30 seconds. Which TWO configurations can meet these requirements?

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

Accepted Answer

Business Critical service tier with zone redundancy enabled.. Options A and C are correct. For zero data loss (RPO=0), synchronous replication is required. Business Critical (option A) with zone redundancy provides synchronous replicas within the same region and automatic failover, meeting both RPO=0 and RTO<30 seconds. Hyperscale (option C) also offers zone redundancy with synchronous log replication, enabling rapid failover without data loss. Option B (auto-failover group with same-region secondary) uses asynchronous replication, so data loss can occur. Option D (General Purpose) uses asynchronous replication as well and cannot guarantee zero data loss. Option E (active geo-replication) is also asynchronous, so it does not meet the RPO requirement.

Answer

Auto-failover group with a secondary in the same region.

Answer

General Purpose service tier with zone redundancy enabled.

Answer

Active geo-replication to a secondary in a different region.

Question 2

Your organization has an Azure SQL Managed Instance that hosts a critical database. You need to configure disaster recovery with automatic failover to a secondary region. The solution must support readable secondary replicas for read-only workloads. Which TWO features should you implement?

Accepted Answer

Readable secondary replicas within the failover group.. The correct features are failover groups and readable secondary replicas. A failover group with a secondary managed instance in a different region provides automatic failover for disaster recovery. Within the failover group, you can configure the secondary replica to be readable, allowing read-only workloads to use it. Option C (failover group with secondary in different region) enables the automatic failover, and option B (readable secondary replicas within the failover group) is a configuration option that meets the requirement for readable secondaries. Together, they satisfy the disaster recovery and readability requirements.

Answer

Auto-failover groups with a secondary in the same region.

Answer

Active geo-replication between managed instances.

Answer

Log shipping to a secondary managed instance.

Question 3

You need to design a disaster recovery solution for an Azure SQL Database that uses the General Purpose service tier. The solution must have an RTO of 1 hour and an RPO of 15 minutes. Which TWO options can achieve these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Auto-failover group with a secondary in a different region.. Options C and D can meet the RTO of 1 hour and RPO of 15 minutes. Active geo-replication (D) provides asynchronous replication to a secondary region with an RPO typically seconds to minutes, and failover can be initiated manually within minutes, meeting both targets. Auto-failover groups (C) build on active geo-replication and add automatic failover, also meeting the requirements. Option A (PITR with geo-redundant backup storage) cannot reliably meet the 1-hour RTO because restoring from backups can take several hours depending on database size and activity. Option B (LTR) is for archival and not suitable for fast recovery. Option E (zone redundancy) provides high availability within a region, not disaster recovery across regions.

Answer

Point-in-time restore (PITR) using geo-redundant backup storage.

Answer

Long-term retention (LTR) backups.

Answer

Zone redundancy on the primary database.

Question 4

You are a database administrator for a global e-commerce company. The company uses Azure SQL Database for its product catalog, which is a mission-critical OLTP workload. The database is currently deployed in the West US region using the Business Critical service tier with zone redundancy enabled. The database size is 200 GB and grows at 10 GB per month. The company has a disaster recovery requirement: in the event of a regional outage, the database must be failed over to a secondary region with an RPO of less than 5 seconds and an RTO of less than 1 minute. Additionally, the secondary database must be readable to support read-heavy reporting workloads. The solution must minimize additional compute costs. You need to recommend a configuration. Which option should you choose?

Accepted Answer

Configure active geo-replication to a secondary database in a paired region using Business Critical tier with a readable secondary.. Active geo-replication to a secondary database in a paired region using Business Critical tier with a readable secondary meets all requirements: it provides cross-region DR with an RPO of less than 5 seconds (synchronous replication within the primary region, asynchronous to secondary), RTO of less than 1 minute (failover is fast), and the secondary is readable for reporting. Zone redundancy within the primary region does not provide cross-region DR, so options B and C are incorrect. Hyperscale tier (option D) is more expensive and does not inherently provide cross-region DR with the required RPO; named replicas add cost.

Answer

Create a failover group within the same region using Business Critical tier with a readable secondary.

Answer

Add a second zone-redundant replica in the same region and configure a failover group.

Answer

Upgrade to Hyperscale tier with zone redundancy and configure a named replica in a secondary region.

Question 5

Your company runs a financial application on Azure SQL Managed Instance. The primary instance is deployed in North Europe. You need to implement a disaster recovery solution that meets the following requirements: automatic failover to a secondary region in case of a regional outage; the secondary must be readable during normal operations to serve read-only queries; the RPO must be less than 10 seconds; the RTO must be less than 30 seconds; and you must minimize compute costs by using the smallest possible secondary instance size. The primary instance uses the Business Critical service tier. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Create a failover group between the primary and a secondary Business Critical instance in a paired region, and use a smaller compute size for the secondary.. A failover group between two Azure SQL Managed Instances in different regions provides automatic failover and a readable secondary. The secondary must be in the Business Critical service tier, matching the primary's tier, but you can use a smaller compute size (fewer vCores) to reduce costs while still supporting read-only workloads. Option A is incorrect because you cannot change the secondary's service tier to General Purpose in a failover group; it must match the primary. Option C is incorrect because the secondary must be in a different region for disaster recovery. Option D is incorrect because active geo-replication is not supported for SQL Managed Instance; failover groups are the appropriate DR solution.

Answer

Create a failover group with a General Purpose secondary instance in a different region to reduce costs.

Answer

Deploy a secondary Business Critical instance in the same region and configure a failover group.

Answer

Configure active geo-replication to a secondary managed instance in a different region.

Question 6

You are responsible for the disaster recovery of an Azure SQL Database that supports a customer-facing application. The database is 50 GB and uses the General Purpose service tier. The application requires an RPO of 1 hour and an RTO of 2 hours. The company has a limited budget and wants to minimize costs. You need to recommend a DR solution that meets the requirements without incurring additional compute costs for a secondary database. Which option should you choose?

Accepted Answer

Use point-in-time restore (PITR) with geo-redundant backup storage.. Point-in-time restore (PITR) using geo-redundant backup storage provides disaster recovery without requiring a secondary database, thus avoiding additional compute costs. Geo-redundant backups are automatically stored in a paired region, so in the event of a regional outage, you can restore the database to any point within the backup retention period (typically up to 35 days). For a 50 GB database, the RTO of 2 hours is achievable, and the RPO of 1 hour is satisfied because backups are taken every 5-10 minutes. Option A (active geo-replication) would incur compute costs for a readable secondary database. Option C (zone redundancy) provides high availability within a region, not cross-region DR. Option D (failover group with a secondary) also requires a secondary database costing compute resources.

Answer

Enable active geo-replication to a secondary database in a different region.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the primary database.

Answer

Configure a failover group with a secondary in a different region.

Question 7

You have an Azure SQL Database configured with active geo-replication. The primary region experiences an outage that lasts longer than the recovery time objective (RTO) of 5 minutes. You need to initiate a failover to the secondary region with minimal data loss. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Force a failover to the secondary region using a PowerShell script.. When the primary region is offline, a planned failover is not possible because it requires synchronization with the primary. A forced failover (option C) is the only way to promote the secondary to primary without the primary being online. While it may result in some data loss, it provides the fastest failover, meeting the RTO of 5 minutes. Option B is incorrect because auto-failover groups have a grace period and may not fail over automatically within the RTO. Option D describes geo-restore from backups, which is not a failover operation.

Answer

Initiate a planned failover to the secondary region using the Azure portal.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group and let it fail over automatically.

Answer

Use geo-restore to recover the database from the most recent geo-replicated backup.

Question 8

Your company requires that all production databases in Azure SQL Database have an RPO of less than 5 seconds and an RTO of less than 1 minute during a regional outage. You need to recommend a high availability and disaster recovery solution. Which feature should you use?

Accepted Answer

Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication. Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication provide the lowest RPO (typically <5 seconds) and RTO (under 1 minute) for regional outages by enabling continuous data synchronization and automated failover across paired regions. Option A is incorrect because zone-redundant configuration only protects against zonal failures within a single region, not a full regional outage. Option C is wrong because long-term retention backups are for archival purposes and have much higher RPO/RTO. Option D is incorrect because geo-restore from geo-redundant backups has an RPO of at least 1 hour and an RTO of several hours to days, failing to meet the strict requirements.

Answer

Zone-redundant configuration (Hyperscale service tier)

Answer

Long-term retention (LTR) backups

Answer

Geo-restore from geo-redundant backups

Question 9

You manage an Azure SQL Managed Instance in the East US region. To meet a 5-second RPO, you configure a failover group with a secondary in West US. During a planned maintenance, the primary becomes unavailable. The failover group is set to automatic with a grace period of 1 hour. You need to minimize downtime. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Initiate a manual forced failover to the secondary.. Initiating a manual forced failover immediately fails over to the secondary, minimizing downtime. Option A is incorrect because dropping and recreating the failover group introduces additional steps and downtime, and is unnecessary since a manual failover can be performed directly. Option B is incorrect because waiting for automatic failover would take up to 1 hour due to the grace period, causing longer downtime. Option C is incorrect because altering the grace period to 0 and then waiting for automatic failover is slower than performing a manual forced failover, which provides the fastest recovery.

Answer

Drop the failover group and create a new one with immediate failover.

Answer

Wait for the automatic failover to occur after the grace period.

Answer

Alter the failover group grace period to 0 and wait for automatic failover.

Question 10

You have an Azure SQL Database in the General Purpose service tier. The database must be available during a planned patching event that updates the underlying infrastructure. What high availability feature is provided by default?

Accepted Answer

Built-in high availability with a standby replica. The General Purpose service tier provides built-in high availability through automatic failover to a remote database copy on a different compute node, ensuring availability during planned patching events. Option A is incorrect because active geo-replication is a disaster recovery feature that requires manual configuration. Option B is incorrect because zone-redundant availability is an optional configuration for the General Purpose tier, not provided by default. Option D is incorrect because Business Critical is a separate service tier and not a high availability feature of General Purpose.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Zone-redundant availability

Answer

Business Critical service tier

Question 11

You have configured a failover group using the JSON template shown. The primary server is server1 in East US, and the secondary server is server2 in West US. During a test, you notice that read-only queries against the secondary endpoint are failing. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The read-only endpoint failover policy is disabled.. The read-only endpoint failover policy is set to Disabled, which prevents read-only queries from being routed to the secondary endpoint. Option B is incorrect because the database is included in the failover group databases list. Option C is incorrect because the failover grace period only affects automatic failover, not read-only routing. Option D is incorrect because the read-write endpoint failover policy is Automatic, which is not related to the read-only query failure.

Answer

The database is not included in the failover group databases list.

Answer

The failover grace period is set too high.

Answer

The read-write endpoint failover policy is set to Automatic.

Question 12

You have an Azure SQL Database configured with active geo-replication to a secondary region. The secondary database is used for read-only workloads. A network latency issue causes replication lag to exceed 10 seconds. You need to ensure reporting queries always see consistent data. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Use ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in connection strings and ensure the secondary is up-to-date.. Using ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in connection strings directs read-only queries to the secondary replica. To ensure consistent data during replication lag, you must verify the secondary is up-to-date before querying, for example by checking the replication lag via DMVs or using the 'latest' hint. This ensures reporting queries see consistent data. Option B is incorrect because read scale-out is specific to Hyperscale databases, not active geo-replication. Option C is incorrect because an auto-failover group with read-write endpoint does not guarantee read consistency for reporting queries. Option D is incorrect because a failover group with read-only endpoint does not enforce consistency checks.

Answer

Enable read scale-out on the secondary.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group with read-write endpoint.

Answer

Create a failover group with read-only endpoint enabled.

Question 13

You are designing a disaster recovery plan for an Azure SQL Managed Instance in the East US region. The plan must meet an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 1 hour. You need to minimize costs while meeting these requirements. Which solution should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Configure a failover group between two General Purpose instances in different regions.. A failover group between two General Purpose instances in different regions provides geo-replication with an RPO of seconds to minutes and an RTO of about 1 hour, meeting the requirements at minimal cost. Option A is incorrect because zone-redundant redundancy only protects against zonal failures within the same region, not regional disasters. Option B is incorrect because deploying a second instance with zone redundancy in the same region does not provide cross-region DR. Option D is incorrect because using Business Critical instances is more expensive and not required for the specified RPO/RTO.

Answer

Use a zone-redundant Business Critical instance.

Answer

Deploy a second instance in the same region with zone redundancy.

Answer

Configure a failover group between two Business Critical instances in different regions.

Question 14

Your organization uses Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier. You need to ensure that if the primary region fails, the database can be failed over to a secondary region with minimal data loss. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Set up active geo-replication to a secondary region.. Active geo-replication to a secondary region provides low RPO (typically 5-10 seconds) by continuously replicating changes asynchronously. This minimizes data loss during a regional failure. Option A (geo-restore) relies on geo-redundant backups and has an RPO of hours, not minimal data loss. Option B (zone redundancy) protects within a region, not across regions. Option D (auto-failover group within same region) does not handle region failure.

Answer

Use geo-restore from geo-redundant backups.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the Hyperscale database.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group with a secondary in the same region.

Question 15

You manage an Azure SQL Database in the Business Critical service tier. The database must be highly available within a single region. Which TWO features contribute to this high availability?

Accepted Answer

Multiple synchronous replicas (4 replicas). The correct answers are B and E. In the Business Critical service tier, multiple synchronous replicas (at least 4) provide local high availability within a region. Additionally, enabling zone-redundant configuration distributes these replicas across availability zones within the same region, further improving availability. Options A and D (Active geo-replication and Auto-failover groups) are cross-region disaster recovery features and do not contribute to intra-region high availability. Option C (Always On availability groups) is the underlying technology for the replicas but is not a separate feature; the question asks for features that contribute to high availability, and the replicas themselves are the feature.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Always On availability groups

Answer

Auto-failover groups