AZ-204 Develop for Azure storage Practice Question
You are designing a solution to store large amounts of structured data that is accessed frequently and requires low-latency reads. The data must be globally distributed and support automatic failover. Which Azure storage solution should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Azure Table Storage (which is a NoSQL key-value store) with Cosmos DB's Table API, but Table Storage lacks the global distribution, automatic failover, and low-latency guarantees that Cosmos DB provides, leading them to choose Option A incorrectly.
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
✓
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes and automatic failover.
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes and automatic failover is the correct choice because it provides globally distributed, low-latency reads and writes with automatic failover at the database level. It supports multiple consistency models and guarantees single-digit millisecond read latencies, making it ideal for frequently accessed structured data that requires global distribution and high availability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Azure Table Storage with geo-replication.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Table Storage provides geo-redundancy (GRS) for data durability and availability within a region pair, but it's fundamentally a regional service. While it offers read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) for reads from the secondary, it does not inherently provide global distribution with low-latency multi-region writes or automatic, transparent failover for write operations across multiple active regions. Its scalability and performance characteristics are also different from a globally distributed NoSQL database.
- ✓
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes and automatic failover.
Why this is correct
Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service designed for high availability and low-latency access worldwide. Its multi-region write capability allows applications to write data to any configured region, with Cosmos DB handling data replication and consistency across all regions. Combined with automatic failover, this ensures continuous availability and resilience against regional outages, making it ideal for globally distributed structured data solutions requiring stringent SLAs.
- ✗
Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication and failover groups.
Why it's wrong here
Azure SQL Database with active geo-replication and failover groups provides high availability and disaster recovery by replicating data to a secondary region. While failover groups enable automatic failover for read/write workloads, this setup typically involves a single primary write region with read-only secondaries. It doesn't inherently offer the same low-latency, multi-master write capabilities across multiple active regions globally that a true globally distributed database like Cosmos DB provides, making it less suitable for scenarios demanding active writes from multiple distant locations.
- ✗
Azure Blob Storage with read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS).
Why it's wrong here
Azure Blob Storage is primarily designed for storing massive amounts of unstructured data, such as images, videos, documents, and backups. While RA-GRS provides geo-redundancy and allows read access to the secondary region for high availability, it is not a database solution for structured data. It lacks the querying capabilities, indexing, transactional integrity, and schema enforcement typically required for managing and efficiently accessing structured datasets, making it unsuitable for the stated requirement.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-204 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-204 exam.