AZ-204 Practice Question: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions
Which TWO actions should you take to optimize costs for an Azure SQL Database that is underutilized? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse cost optimization with performance improvement, selecting options like enabling geo-replication or read scale-out, which are high-availability and scalability features that increase costs, not reduce them.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Purchase reserved capacity
Option C (Purchase reserved capacity) is correct because committing to a 1- or 3-year reservation for Azure SQL Database provides a significant discount (up to ~33% for 1-year and ~55% for 3-year) compared to pay-as-you-go pricing, directly reducing cost for a database that will continue running. Option E (Scale down to a lower service tier) is correct because an underutilized database is provisioned with more DTUs/vCores than it needs, so moving to a lower service tier or compute size reduces the hourly provisioned cost while still meeting actual workload demand. Option A (Enable geo-replication) is incorrect because it adds a secondary readable database and increases cost rather than optimizing it. Option B (Increase the DTU or vCore limit) is incorrect because it raises provisioned resources and cost, the opposite of optimization for an underutilized database. Option D (Enable read scale-out) is incorrect because, while it can offload read workloads, it does not reduce the cost of an underutilized database and may require a higher service tier.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Enabling geo-replication for an Azure SQL Database involves provisioning and maintaining a secondary replica in a different Azure region. This feature is designed for disaster recovery and high availability, ensuring business continuity in case of a regional outage. However, maintaining this additional infrastructure, including storage and compute resources for the secondary database, along with data transfer costs between regions, directly increases the overall operational expenses rather than optimizing them.
- ✗
Increase the DTU or vCore limit
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the DTU (Database Transaction Unit) or vCore limit for an Azure SQL Database directly allocates more underlying compute, memory, and I/O resources to the database. DTUs and vCores are performance metrics that correspond to the provisioned hardware capacity. Elevating these limits enhances the database's ability to handle higher workloads and more concurrent transactions, but this increased performance capability comes with a proportional and immediate rise in the monthly billing rate, making it a cost-increasing action.
- ✓
Purchase reserved capacity
Why this is correct
Purchasing reserved capacity for Azure SQL Database allows organizations to commit to a specific amount of database compute usage for a one-year or three-year term. By making this upfront commitment, Azure provides substantial discounts, often ranging from 30% to 70% compared to standard pay-as-you-go rates. This strategy is particularly effective for predictable, long-running workloads, significantly reducing the total cost of ownership over the reservation period and directly optimizing expenditures.
- ✗
Enable read scale-out
Why it's wrong here
Enabling read scale-out in Azure SQL Database, available in certain service tiers like Business Critical or Hyperscale, offloads read-only workloads to secondary replicas. While this improves performance for read-heavy applications by distributing the load, it requires the provisioning and ongoing maintenance of these additional, dedicated read-only replicas. Each replica consumes its own set of compute and storage resources, thereby increasing the overall infrastructure footprint and the associated costs of the database solution rather than reducing them.
- ✓
Scale down to a lower service tier
Why this is correct
Scaling down an Azure SQL Database to a lower service tier or a reduced performance level (fewer DTUs or vCores) directly reduces the allocated compute, memory, and storage resources. Azure's pricing model is directly tied to these provisioned resources, meaning a decrease in capacity immediately translates to a lower monthly billing rate. This action is a fundamental method for cost optimization, especially when current workload demands are lower than the currently provisioned capacity, ensuring resources are aligned with actual needs.
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