DP-300 Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment Practice Test 7 — 15 Questions

Question 1

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?

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

Accepted Answer

Readable secondary replicas within the failover group.. Option C is correct because an auto-failover group with a secondary managed instance in a different Azure region provides cross-region disaster recovery with automatic failover, which is exactly what the scenario requires. Option B is correct because the failover group can be configured so the secondary managed instance is readable, enabling read-only workloads to be offloaded to the secondary replica. Option A is incorrect because a secondary in the same region does not satisfy the requirement for disaster recovery to a secondary region. Option D is incorrect because active geo-replication is not supported for Azure SQL Managed Instance. Option E is incorrect because log shipping does not provide automatic failover and does not support readable secondary replicas in the way required.

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 2

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 with a secondary Business Critical instance in a paired region meets all requirements: automatic failover, readable secondary, low RPO/RTO, and cost savings via smaller compute size. Business Critical tier supports readable secondaries and has an RPO of ~5 seconds and RTO of ~30 seconds. Using a smaller compute size for the secondary reduces costs while maintaining the required performance for read-only workloads.

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 3

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 4

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 down and you need to fail over with minimal data loss, a forced failover is required because the primary is unavailable and a planned failover cannot complete. Forced failover promotes the secondary immediately, accepting potential data loss equal to the replication lag.

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 5

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 6

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 7

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 workloads to the secondary database. However, to ensure consistent data, the application must verify that the secondary is up-to-date, as replication lag can cause stale reads.

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 8

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 meets the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO because Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups provide asynchronous replication with automatic DNS failover, and General Purpose tier is the most cost-effective option that supports geo-replication. Business Critical would exceed the cost requirement unnecessarily since the RPO/RTO targets don't demand the low-latency local SSD or built-in read replicas.

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 9

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 for Azure SQL Database (including Hyperscale) creates a continuously readable secondary in a different region with asynchronous replication, enabling a manual failover with minimal data loss (typically seconds of RPO). This is the correct mechanism for cross-region failover of a Hyperscale database.

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 10

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). Option B is correct because the Business Critical service tier uses a built-in Always On availability group architecture with multiple synchronous replicas (typically 3-4 replicas including the primary), which provide automatic failover and high availability within a single region. Option E is correct because enabling a zone-redundant configuration distributes these replicas across availability zones within the same region, protecting against zone-level failures and further strengthening single-region high availability. Option A (active geo-replication) is a cross-region disaster recovery feature, not a single-region HA mechanism. Option C (Always On availability groups) is the underlying technology but is not a user-configurable feature of Azure SQL Database; it is not the answer being tested here. Option D (auto-failover groups) is designed for cross-region failover and read-write listener scenarios, not single-region high availability.

Answer

Active geo-replication

Answer

Always On availability groups

Answer

Auto-failover groups

Question 11

You are tasked with designing a disaster recovery solution for Azure SQL Database that meets an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 30 seconds during a regional outage. Which TWO features should you combine?

Accepted Answer

Business Critical service tier. Business Critical service tier (B) is correct because it uses locally attached SSD storage with in-memory OLTP and synchronous replication across replicas, delivering the low-latency, high-throughput performance and sub-5-second RPO needed for the aggressive recovery targets. Failover groups with active geo-replication (C) are correct because they provide a secondary database in a paired/remote region with asynchronous replication (typically under 5 seconds lag) and allow a fast, automated DNS-based failover that can meet the 30-second RTO during a regional outage. General Purpose (A) is not suitable because it uses remote premium storage with higher latency and cannot reliably meet a 5-second RPO. Geo-restore from GRS backups (D) is not appropriate because it restores from geo-replicated backups with an RPO of up to 1 hour and an RTO of many hours, far exceeding the requirements. Zone-redundant configuration (E) only protects against a single datacenter/zone failure within a region and does not address a full regional outage.

Answer

General Purpose service tier

Answer

Geo-restore from GRS backups

Answer

Zone-redundant configuration

Question 12

You have an Azure SQL Managed Instance. You need to implement a disaster recovery solution that provides automatic failover with an RTO of less than 1 hour. Which THREE actions should you take?

Accepted Answer

Create a secondary Managed Instance in a different Azure region.. Option B is correct because a disaster recovery solution spanning regions requires a secondary Azure SQL Managed Instance deployed in a different Azure region, which serves as the failover target. Option C is correct because a failover group (an auto-failover group) provides automatic failover and read-write listener endpoint redirection between the primary and secondary managed instances, meeting the automatic failover requirement. Option E is correct because Business Critical service tier is required for configuring failover groups with Azure SQL Managed Instance, as it supports the necessary availability and replication capabilities. Option A is not correct because zone redundancy protects against datacenter-level failures within a single region, not cross-region disaster recovery. Option D is not correct because geo-replication is a feature of Azure SQL Database, not Azure SQL Managed Instance, and failover groups are the supported mechanism for managed instance DR.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the primary instance.

Answer

Enable geo-replication on the instance.

Question 13

You are the database administrator for a global e-commerce company. The company uses Azure SQL Database in the Business Critical service tier for its transactional database, db1, hosted in the East US region. The database is 500 GB and experiences high write throughput. The current disaster recovery solution uses active geo-replication to a secondary in West US, but during a recent failover drill, the failover took 45 seconds, exceeding the corporate RTO of 30 seconds. The RPO requirement is zero data loss. You need to improve the failover time while maintaining zero data loss. The secondary must be in a different Azure region for compliance. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Configure an auto-failover group between East US and West US using zone-redundant deployment within each region and ensure the secondary is zone-redundant.. None of the provided options fully satisfy both requirements: zero data loss (RPO=0) and failover time under 30 seconds across regions. Auto-failover groups (Option C) use asynchronous replication across regions, so RPO is not zero. General Purpose tier (Option B) also uses async replication. Increasing replicas (Option A) does not affect failover time. Hyperscale with named replicas (Option D) does not support cross-region failover. To achieve zero data loss across regions, an alternative solution such as SQL Server on Azure VMs with an availability group or Azure SQL Managed Instance with a distributed availability group would be required.

Answer

Increase the number of replicas in the Business Critical tier to 5.

Answer

Change the secondary to a General Purpose tier and use async replication.

Answer

Move both primary and secondary to Hyperscale tier and use named replicas.

Question 14

A small business uses Azure SQL Database single database in the General Purpose tier for its inventory management system. The database is located in the Brazil South region. The business wants a disaster recovery solution that can automatically fail over to a secondary region in case of an outage, with an RPO of less than 1 hour and an RTO of less than 2 hours. The budget is limited, so the solution must be cost-effective. What should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Create a failover group with a secondary database in a different region using the General Purpose tier.. A failover group with a secondary database in a different region using the General Purpose tier provides automatic failover with an RPO of less than 1 hour and RTO of less than 2 hours, and it is cost-effective because it uses the same tier as the primary. Failover groups allow you to manage a group of databases and automatically fail over to the secondary region.

Answer

Enable zone redundancy on the existing database.

Answer

Use geo-restore from geo-redundant backups.

Answer

Upgrade to Business Critical tier and configure geo-replication.

Question 15

You manage a critical application that uses Azure SQL Database in the West US region. The application requires an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 1 hour in the event of a regional outage. You need to recommend a high availability solution that meets these requirements with minimal cost. What should you recommend?

Accepted Answer

Create a failover group with a secondary replica in a paired region using active geo-replication.. A failover group with a secondary replica in a paired region using active geo-replication provides an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO of under 1 hour, meeting the requirements. This configuration is cost-effective compared to Business Critical and provides a live secondary for failover. Active geo-replication supports up to four secondaries and allows manual failover.

Answer

Configure an auto-failover group with a secondary in a different availability zone within West US.

Answer

Enable geo-restore for the database with a backup retention of 35 days.

Answer

Deploy a zone-redundant Azure SQL Database in the West US region.