DP-300 Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment Practice Test 5 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You have an Azure SQL Database configured with a failover group that includes a secondary in another region. The primary region experiences a complete outage. You initiate a forced failover. After the outage is resolved, you want to bring the original primary back as a secondary without data loss. What should you do?

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

Accepted Answer

Remove the original primary from the failover group, drop the database, and recreate it as a new secondary. After a forced failover, the original primary is removed from the failover group and must be recreated as a new secondary. The correct procedure is to remove it from the failover group, drop the database, and recreate it as a new secondary, which will then be seeded from the new primary. This ensures data consistency without data loss.

Answer

Use the 'az sql db failover-group re-sync' command to re-synchronize

Answer

Configure replication from the new primary to the old primary using active geo-replication

Answer

Restore the original primary from backup and re-add it to the failover group

Question 2

Which THREE are requirements for configuring a failover group for Azure SQL Managed Instance? (Select three.)

Accepted Answer

Both managed instances must have the same service tier. Option A is correct because a failover group for Azure SQL Managed Instance requires both the primary and secondary instances to be in the same service tier (for example, both General Purpose or both Business Critical), ensuring compatible performance and replication characteristics. Option B is correct because the secondary managed instance must not contain any user databases before the failover group is created; the failover group seeding process populates the secondary with copies of the primary's databases. Option E is correct because both managed instances must use the same hardware generation (such as Gen5), since failover groups require matching compute generation for replication and failover to work. Option C is incorrect because the two instances must be in different subnets (and typically different virtual networks or peered networks), not the same subnet. Option D is incorrect because the primary instance does not need to contain a user database at the time the failover group is configured; the requirement is only that the secondary has none.

Answer

Both instances must be in the same virtual network subnet

Answer

The primary instance must have at least one user database

Question 3

After running the above Azure CLI command, you notice that the secondary database is not readable. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The '--secondary-type' parameter is set to 'Geo' instead of 'Readable'. The '--secondary-type' parameter controls the secondary's readability. Setting it to 'Geo' creates a geo-replicated secondary that is not readable. To enable readable secondaries, you must specify '--secondary-type Readable' (or 'Named'). Option A is incorrect because Azure SQL Database geo-replication does support readable secondaries when configured correctly. Option B is incorrect: while a low DTU might affect performance, it does not prevent readability; the secondary can still be read even with 2 DTUs. Option D is incorrect because Gen5 hardware generation supports readable secondaries.

Answer

Geo-replication does not support readable secondaries by default

Answer

The secondary database capacity is set to 2 DTUs, which is too low

Answer

The hardware generation is Gen5, which does not support readable secondaries

Question 4

Your company has a policy that requires all Azure SQL Databases to be recoverable to a point in time within the last 5 minutes in the event of a user error. What should you configure?

Accepted Answer

Configure point-in-time restore (PITR) with a retention period of at least 5 minutes. Point-in-time restore (PITR) is the Azure SQL Database feature that allows you to restore a database to any point in time within the retention period, with a default retention of 7 days and a minimum of 1 day (configurable up to 35 days). The recovery point objective (RPO) for PITR is typically less than 5 minutes, meaning you can recover to a point within the last 5 minutes. Configuring PITR with a retention period of at least 5 minutes ensures that the database can be restored to a recent point, satisfying the policy requirement. The other options do not provide point-in-time recovery within 5 minutes.

Answer

Enable zone-redundant configuration

Answer

Set up active geo-replication to a secondary region

Answer

Enable long-term backup retention (LTR)

Question 5

You run the above Kusto query and see that a database named 'OrdersDB' has high wait times for 'FAILOVER_GROUP_WAIT' every hour. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

Replication lag between primary and secondary is high. High wait times for 'FAILOVER_GROUP_WAIT' indicate significant replication lag between the primary and secondary databases, as this wait type measures the time the primary spends waiting for the secondary to apply changes. Option A is incorrect because the query does not measure connection requests. Option B is incorrect because write transactions may still occur; the wait is about replication, not transaction absence. Option C is incorrect because frequent automatic failovers are not indicated by this wait stat; it measures replication lag, not failover frequency.

Answer

The secondary database is experiencing high connection requests

Answer

The primary database is not receiving any write transactions

Answer

The failover group is experiencing frequent automatic failovers

Question 6

You are designing a disaster recovery solution for a mission-critical Azure SQL Database that requires a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 30 seconds. Which configuration should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Failover group with automatic failover and data loss threshold of 5 seconds.. A failover group with automatic failover and a data loss threshold of 5 seconds meets the RPO of 5 seconds and RTO of 30 seconds. Failover groups provide automatic failover to a secondary region with a grace period and data loss threshold, ensuring minimal data loss and rapid recovery. This configuration is designed for mission-critical databases requiring low RPO and RTO.

Answer

Active geo-replication with manual failover.

Answer

Geo-restore of automated backups.

Answer

Zone-redundant database in the primary region.

Question 7

You are designing a high availability solution for an Azure SQL Database that supports an online transaction processing (OLTP) workload. The database must be available with an SLA of 99.995% and must withstand a regional outage. Which configuration should you choose?

Accepted Answer

Business Critical tier with zone-redundancy and a failover group with geo-replication.. The Business Critical tier with zone redundancy provides a 99.995% SLA within a region. However, to withstand a regional outage, you need geo-replication. A failover group with active geo-replication ensures that if the primary region fails, you can fail over to a secondary region. Option A (Business Critical zone-redundancy only) protects against zone failures within a region but not a full regional outage. Option B (General Purpose with active geo-replication) has a lower SLA (99.99%) and does not meet the 99.995% requirement. Option C (Hyperscale with geo-replication) also has a lower SLA (99.95%) than required.

Answer

Business Critical tier with zone-redundancy only.

Answer

General Purpose tier with active geo-replication to a secondary region.

Answer

Hyperscale tier with geo-replication.

Question 8

You have an Azure SQL Managed Instance that is the primary in a failover group. You need to perform a manual failover for planned maintenance with zero data loss. Which PowerShell cmdlet should you use?

Accepted Answer

Switch-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup -AllowDataLoss:$false. The `Switch-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup` cmdlet with `-AllowDataLoss:$false` performs a planned failover with zero data loss. This is the correct PowerShell cmdlet for manual failover of a failover group.

Answer

Set-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup

Answer

Start-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup

Answer

Invoke-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup

Question 9

You need to create a disaster recovery plan for an Azure SQL Database that has an RPO of 1 hour and an RTO of 12 hours. Which solution should you use?

Accepted Answer

Geo-restore of automated backups.. Geo-restore of automated backups is the appropriate solution for an RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 12 hours. Azure SQL Database automatically takes backups (full, differential, and log) with a retention period, and geo-restore allows you to restore from a geo-replicated backup to a new database in a different region. The RPO is typically up to 1 hour (since backups are taken every 5-10 minutes for log, but geo-replication of backups may have a slight delay), and the RTO can be within 12 hours, making B the correct choice.

Answer

Failover group with automatic failover.

Answer

Active geo-replication.

Answer

Zone-redundant configuration.

Question 10

Refer to the exhibit. You have an Azure SQL Database failover group configured with the ARM template snippet shown. You need to ensure that read-only queries are routed to the secondary region when the primary is healthy. What should you modify?

Accepted Answer

Set the readOnlyEndpoint failoverPolicy to Enabled.. For an Azure SQL Database failover group, the readOnlyEndpoint failoverPolicy controls whether read-only connections can be routed to the secondary replica. Setting it to 'Enabled' allows the listener to direct ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly connections to the secondary region even while the primary is healthy, which is exactly the requirement.

Answer

Set the readWriteEndpoint failoverPolicy to Manual.

Answer

Add the database to the partnerServers array.

Answer

Change the failoverGracePeriodMinutes to 0.

Question 11

Refer to the exhibit. You are configuring a backup policy for an Azure SQL Database. The database is in the East US region. You need to ensure that the database can be restored to a different region in the event of a regional disaster. Which setting in the exhibit must be correctly configured?

Accepted Answer

The backupStorageRedundancy is set to Geo.. BackupStorageRedundancy must be set to 'Geo' to enable geo-redundant backups that can be restored to a different region in case of a regional disaster. Option A is incorrect because the geoBackupPolicy state being Enabled simply enables the geo-backup policy, but it does not ensure geo-redundancy if the storage redundancy is not set to Geo. Option B is incorrect because the geoBackupPolicy location indicates where the geo-backup is stored, but the key setting for cross-region restore is the storage redundancy, not the location. Option D is incorrect because weeklyRetention defines how long weekly backups are retained, which does not affect the ability to restore to a different region.

Answer

The geoBackupPolicy state is Enabled.

Answer

The geoBackupPolicy location is set to eastus2.

Answer

The weeklyRetention is set to P4W.

Question 12

Refer to the exhibit. You have an Azure SQL Managed Instance configured with the failover group properties shown. The primary region experiences an outage. After 30 minutes, the failover group has not failed over. You need to force failover immediately. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Use the Switch-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup cmdlet with -AllowDataLoss.. The failover group is configured with an automatic failover policy and a grace period (typically 1 hour by default). Since the primary region has been down for only 30 minutes, the grace period has not yet expired, so automatic failover has not triggered. To force an immediate failover before the grace period elapses, you must use the Switch-AzSqlDatabaseFailoverGroup cmdlet with the -AllowDataLoss parameter, which performs a forced failover and accepts potential data loss.

Answer

Change the failover policy to Manual and then fail over.

Answer

Set the secondaryType to Standby.

Answer

Wait for the grace period to expire.

Question 13

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using Azure SQL Database failover groups for high availability?

Accepted Answer

Automatic failover to a secondary region based on a grace period.. Option B is correct because failover groups support automatic failover to the secondary region using a configurable grace period (in hours), which triggers when the primary region becomes unavailable. Option C is correct because failover groups provide listener endpoints, including a read-only listener, that allow routing read-only workloads to the secondary region. Option A is incorrect because failover groups replicate asynchronously across regions, not synchronously across availability zones. Option D is incorrect because failover groups do not load balance read-write traffic across multiple replicas. Option E is incorrect because geo-redundant backup storage is a backup feature, not a benefit specific to failover groups.

Answer

Synchronous replication of data across availability zones.

Answer

Load balancing read-write traffic across multiple replicas.

Answer

Geo-redundant backup storage for disaster recovery.

Question 14

Which THREE factors should you consider when choosing between active geo-replication and failover groups for an Azure SQL Database disaster recovery solution?

Accepted Answer

Failover groups require all databases in the group to fail over together.. Option A is correct because failover groups operate at the server/group level, so every database placed in the group fails over together as a unit, which matters when you need coordinated failover across multiple databases. Option C is correct because a failover group exposes a read-write listener endpoint (and a read-only listener) that clients use, so applications do not need to change connection strings after failover. Option E is correct because active geo-replication supports up to four readable secondary replicas, which is a key scalability/read-offload consideration when choosing it over failover groups. Option B is incorrect because active geo-replication is not limited to Business Critical; it is available across service tiers (with different replica limits). Option D is incorrect because failover groups do support readable secondaries via the read-only listener endpoint.

Answer

Active geo-replication is only available in the Business Critical tier.

Answer

Failover groups do not support readable secondaries.

Question 15

Which TWO of the following are valid methods to recover an Azure SQL Database after a regional outage?

Accepted Answer

Fail over to a secondary region using a failover group.. Option B is correct because failover groups provide automatic or manual failover of an Azure SQL Database to a secondary region, allowing recovery from a regional outage by redirecting the read-write listener endpoint to the secondary replica. Option E is correct because geo-restore uses geo-redundant backups (stored in a paired Azure region) to restore a database to a new server in a different region when the primary region is unavailable. Option A is not valid because Azure SQL Database does not support user-configured log shipping as a recovery method. Option C is not valid for a regional outage because point-in-time restore restores within the same region and cannot be used if that region is down. Option D is not a supported method because geo-redundant backups are consumed through geo-restore, not by manually copying a backup to a new server.

Answer

Replicate the database from a backup to a secondary region using log shipping.

Answer

Point-in-time restore to a time before the outage.

Answer

Copy the database from a geo-redundant backup to a new server.