DP-300 Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment Practice Test 13 — 15 Questions

Question 1

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?

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

Accepted Answer

Auto-failover group with a secondary in a different region.. Option C (auto-failover group with a secondary in a different region) is correct because failover groups provide a readable/writable secondary in another region with an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO typically under 1 hour, satisfying both the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO. Option D (active geo-replication to a secondary server in a paired region) is also correct because it continuously replicates transactions asynchronously with an RPO of roughly 5 seconds and supports a manual/forced failover that can complete well within 1 hour, meeting the stated targets. Option A (PITR using geo-redundant backup storage) is not appropriate because PITR restores to a point in time from backups with an RPO of up to 10 minutes but an RTO that can exceed 1 hour depending on database size, and it is a restore operation rather than a fast failover. Option B (LTR backups) is incorrect because LTR is designed for long-term compliance retention (up to 10 years) and does not provide the low RTO/RPO needed for disaster recovery. Option E (zone redundancy on the primary database) is incorrect because zone redundancy only protects against a single-zone datacenter failure within the same region and does not address a regional disaster or provide cross-region failover.

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 2

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 3

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 a group-level failover that can redirect all databases in a group to a secondary region with an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO of under a minute, meeting both requirements. Active geo-replication continuously replicates transactions to secondary databases, and the failover group automates the DNS and connection redirection so applications reconnect quickly.

Answer

Zone-redundant configuration (Hyperscale service tier)

Answer

Long-term retention (LTR) backups

Answer

Geo-restore from geo-redundant backups

Question 4

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. Azure SQL Database in the General Purpose service tier includes built-in high availability with a standby replica, which is provisioned automatically and used to fail over during planned maintenance or unplanned outages. This built-in HA ensures the database remains available during patching events without requiring the customer to configure geo-replication or zone redundancy. The standby replica is maintained synchronously and failover is automatic.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Zone-redundant availability

Answer

Business Critical service tier

Question 5

A company plans to migrate an on-premises SQL Server database to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance. They require a high availability solution that provides automatic failover between replicas within the same region with an RPO of 0 and an RTO of less than 30 seconds. Which service tier should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Business Critical. Business Critical service tier in Azure SQL Managed Instance provides built-in high availability with multiple replicas and automatic failover, achieving an RPO of 0 and RTO typically under 30 seconds. It uses Always On availability groups under the hood with local redundant storage and supports read-only routing. This tier is designed for mission-critical workloads requiring the lowest latency and highest resilience.

Answer

General Purpose

Answer

Azure SQL Database (single)

Answer

Hyperscale

Question 6

Your company runs a critical application on Azure SQL Managed Instance in the North Europe region. The application requires an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 2 hours during a regional disaster. The current setup uses a single instance with geo-redundant backup storage (RA-GRS). During a disaster recovery planning session, you discover that geo-restore from RA-GRS backups takes approximately 4 hours to complete, which exceeds the RTO. You need to modify the disaster recovery solution to meet the RTO without exceeding the budget significantly. The solution must minimize administrative overhead. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Deploy a secondary instance in a different region and configure a failover group.. A failover group in Azure SQL Managed Instance provides a secondary instance in a different region with automatic or manual failover, and it replicates data asynchronously with an RPO typically under 5 seconds, well within the 5-minute requirement. Failover groups also provide read-write and read-only listener endpoints, minimizing application changes and administrative overhead. This meets the RTO of 2 hours because failover can be triggered quickly, and the secondary is already provisioned and synchronized.

Answer

Change backup storage to locally-redundant (LRS) and rely on point-in-time restore.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the primary instance.

Answer

Scale the instance to a higher service tier to improve restore performance.

Question 7

Refer to the exhibit. You are reviewing an ARM template for an Azure SQL Database backup policy. The database is used for a reporting workload that is updated daily. The compliance team requires that point-in-time restore (PITR) be available for the past 30 days. What action should you take?

Accepted Answer

Change the retentionDays property to 30.. The retentionDays property in the ARM template controls the point-in-time restore (PITR) retention period. Currently set to 14 days, it must be changed to 30 days to meet the compliance requirement. Option B is incorrect because diffBackupIntervalInHours specifies the interval for differential backups, not retention. Option C is incorrect because 14 days does not satisfy the 30-day requirement. Option D is incorrect because long-term retention (LTR) is for archival purposes beyond PITR and does not replace the PITR retention setting.

Answer

Change the diffBackupIntervalInHours to 24.

Answer

No action is needed; the current policy meets the requirement.

Answer

Add a long-term retention policy with a weekly retention of 30 days.

Question 8

You are planning high availability for an Azure SQL Database that runs an e-commerce application. The database uses the Business Critical service tier. Which TWO features are automatically enabled to provide high availability within a single region? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Automatic failover to a secondary replica if the primary becomes unavailable.. Option A is correct because in the Business Critical tier Azure SQL Database automatically provisions a primary replica plus secondary replicas and performs automatic failover to a secondary if the primary becomes unavailable, with no user action required. Option B is correct because Business Critical uses Always On availability group technology to maintain multiple synchronous replicas (one primary and two secondary) within the same region, ensuring data redundancy and fast failover. Option C is incorrect because auto-failover groups are a user-configured feature for cross-region disaster recovery, not an automatic single-region HA capability. Option D is incorrect because active geo-replication is a manually configured cross-region replication feature, not automatically enabled for single-region HA. Option E is incorrect because read scale-out using a readable secondary is an optional configuration for offloading read workloads, not an automatic HA mechanism.

Answer

Auto-failover groups with a secondary in another region.

Answer

Active geo-replication to a paired region.

Answer

Read scale-out with a readable secondary replica.

Question 9

You are a database administrator for a healthcare company that uses Azure SQL Database for its electronic health records (EHR) system. The database is in the West Europe region using the General Purpose service tier. The company is expanding to the United States and wants to set up disaster recovery with the secondary in East US. The requirements are: RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 1 hour. The application should automatically failover without manual intervention. Additionally, you must ensure that the secondary database is not used for read traffic to avoid any performance impact on the primary. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Create a failover group with a non-readable secondary in East US and enable auto-failover.. A failover group with auto-failover and a non-readable secondary meets all requirements: RPO of 5 minutes can be achieved with async replication, RTO of 1 hour with automatic failover, and no read traffic. Option A is wrong because active geo-replication alone does not provide automatic failover. Option B is wrong because a readable secondary would be used for read traffic. Option D is wrong because zone-redundancy doesn't protect regionally.

Answer

Configure active geo-replication to a secondary database in East US and set up a custom monitoring script to trigger failover.

Answer

Create a failover group with a readable secondary in East US and enable auto-failover.

Answer

Deploy a zone-redundant General Purpose database in West Europe and use geo-restore to East US.

Question 10

You administer an Azure SQL Database named SalesDB that uses the Business Critical service tier. The database is deployed in the West US 2 region, which does not support availability zones. The application requires a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 30 seconds for a zonal failure within the region. You need to meet the RTO requirement with minimal administrative effort. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the database to a region that supports availability zones and enable zone redundancy.. Zone redundancy in the Business Critical tier provides automatic failover across availability zones with an RTO of less than 30 seconds. Because West US 2 lacks availability zone support, the database must be moved to a region that supports them. Configuring cross-region replication or read replicas does not address zonal failures with the required RTO. Migrating and enabling zone redundancy is the correct solution.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the database.

Answer

Create a read-scale out replica in the same region.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group with a secondary in East US 2.

Question 11

You manage an Azure SQL Database named OrderDB in the Business Critical service tier. A compliance requirement mandates that the database must remain available even if an entire Azure availability zone fails within the primary region. You need to configure the database to meet this requirement with the least administrative effort. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Enable zone redundancy for the database.. Zone redundancy in the Business Critical tier replicates the database across multiple availability zones, ensuring automatic failover and continuous availability during a zone outage. It is the simplest configuration change that meets the requirement without application modifications or manual intervention.

Answer

Create a failover group with an automatic failover policy.

Answer

Increase the database compute size to the maximum vCore limit.

Answer

Configure active geo-replication to a secondary region.

Question 12

You have an Azure SQL Managed Instance named MI1 in the West Europe region. The instance hosts a mission-critical database that must be recoverable in a different region within 15 minutes of a regional outage. The solution must minimize data loss and administrative overhead. You need to implement a disaster recovery solution. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Configure an auto-failover group between MI1 and a secondary managed instance in another region.. Auto-failover groups are the recommended disaster recovery feature for Azure SQL Managed Instance. They enable automatic failover to a secondary instance in another region, ensuring rapid recovery and minimal data loss with low administrative effort. Geo-redundant backups and replication methods do not provide the required RTO and automation.

Answer

Enable geo-redundant backup storage for MI1.

Answer

Create a transactional replication subscription to a SQL Server on an Azure VM in another region.

Answer

Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the managed instance to another region.

Question 13

You administer an Azure SQL Database named SalesDB in the East US region. The business requires that SalesDB remains available even if an entire Azure availability zone within East US fails. You need to configure the database so that replicas are automatically distributed across multiple availability zones with no application connection string changes. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Enable zone redundancy for the database.. Zone redundancy in Azure SQL Database spreads replicas across availability zones within a region, providing automatic failover if a zone becomes unavailable. It requires no application changes because the same server hostname is used. Auto-failover groups and active geo-replication are cross-region features, and read-scale out is for read offloading, so none of those meet the intra-region zone failure requirement.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group to a secondary region.

Answer

Enable read-scale out and point the application to the read-only replica.

Answer

Create an active geo-replication secondary in the same region.

Question 14

You manage an Azure SQL Managed Instance that hosts a business-critical database. The compliance team requires that the instance be recoverable in a different Azure region if the primary region becomes unavailable, and that the failover be initiated manually only by authorized administrators. You need to configure a disaster recovery solution. Which two actions should you perform? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Configure the failover policy of the failover group to Manual.. Auto-failover groups are the supported cross-region disaster recovery feature for Azure SQL Managed Instance, and they provide a listener endpoint. To meet the compliance requirement that failover be manually initiated, the failover policy must be set to Manual. Zone redundancy is intra-region, active geo-replication is not available for managed instances, and Automatic policy would remove the required human control.

Answer

Configure active geo-replication between the two managed instances.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the primary managed instance.

Answer

Set the failover group policy to Automatic.

Question 15

You manage an Azure SQL Managed Instance that hosts a mission-critical database. The instance is in the East US 2 region. You need to configure a disaster recovery solution that meets the following requirements: (1) provide a readable secondary in a different Azure region, (2) support automatic failover, and (3) minimize administrative effort. Which two actions should you perform? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Create a failover group and add the managed instance to it.. For Azure SQL Managed Instance, cross-region disaster recovery with a readable secondary and automatic failover is achieved by using failover groups. You must deploy a secondary managed instance in a different region and then add both instances to a failover group. Active geo-replication and zone redundancy do not meet the requirements for a cross-region readable secondary with automatic failover. The failover group provides the listener endpoint and automates the failover process.

Answer

Create a geo-secondary using the Azure portal by selecting the managed instance and choosing 'Geo-Replication'.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the primary managed instance.

Answer

Configure active geo-replication for the managed instance.