This AZ-204 practice question tests your understanding of develop for azure storage. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
You want to ensure that data in an Azure Storage account is replicated across multiple Azure regions to protect against regional outages. Which replication option should you choose?
Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
GRS replicates to a secondary region.
Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
Why wrong: LRS replicates within a single data center.
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
Why wrong: RA-GRS provides read access in secondary, but GRS is the base.
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Why wrong: ZRS replicates across zones in one region.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replicates your data synchronously three times within a primary region using LRS, then asynchronously replicates to a secondary region hundreds of miles away. This ensures data survives a complete regional outage because the secondary copy is available for read or write access after a failover, meeting the requirement for cross-region protection.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
Why this is correct
GRS replicates to a secondary region.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
Why it's wrong here
LRS replicates within a single data center.
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
Why it's wrong here
RA-GRS provides read access in secondary, but GRS is the base.
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Why it's wrong here
ZRS replicates across zones in one region.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often choose RA-GRS because they think read access is required for disaster recovery, but the question only asks for replication to protect against regional outages, making GRS the correct choice without the extra read-access feature.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, GRS uses asynchronous replication with a recovery point objective (RPO) of typically 15 minutes, meaning data loss up to that window is possible during a regional disaster. The secondary region is paired with the primary (e.g., East US with West US) and is not available for reads unless a customer-initiated failover occurs or RA-GRS is enabled. In a real-world scenario, if the primary region goes down, Microsoft initiates a failover to the secondary region, and your storage account endpoint switches to the secondary, allowing writes to resume.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Develop for Azure storage — This question tests Develop for Azure storage — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Geo-redundant storage (GRS) — Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replicates your data synchronously three times within a primary region using LRS, then asynchronously replicates to a secondary region hundreds of miles away. This ensures data survives a complete regional outage because the secondary copy is available for read or write access after a failover, meeting the requirement for cross-region protection.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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