AZ-204 Develop for Azure storage Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates 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.
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
✓
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.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
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
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) is the correct choice because it ensures data durability by asynchronously replicating data from the primary region to a secondary region hundreds of miles away. This strategy protects against regional outages or major disasters affecting the entire primary datacenter location. With GRS, Azure maintains three copies of your data within the primary region and three additional copies in the paired secondary region, offering 11 nines (99.999999999%) of durability over a given year. This robust replication guarantees that your data remains available even if the primary region becomes completely unavailable.
- ✗
Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
Why it's wrong here
Locally-redundant storage (LRS) is incorrect because it only replicates data three times within a single data center in the primary region. While LRS provides high durability against drive failures or localized hardware issues, it does not protect against a broader data center outage or a regional disaster. If the entire data center or region where the storage account resides becomes unavailable, data stored with LRS would also be inaccessible, failing to ensure overall data durability in such scenarios.
- ✗
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
Why it's wrong here
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) is technically geo-redundant, but it is not the most direct answer for simply "ensuring data is durable" across regions. RA-GRS builds upon GRS by adding the capability to read data directly from the secondary region, even when the primary region is operational. While it provides the same geo-redundancy as GRS, the core requirement of ensuring data durability against regional failures is met by GRS itself, making RA-GRS an enhanced option rather than the fundamental answer for just durability.
- ✗
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) is incorrect because it replicates data synchronously across three Azure availability zones within a single primary region. While ZRS offers excellent resilience against data center failures within a region, it does not protect against a complete regional outage. If a disaster affects the entire Azure region, data stored with ZRS would still be at risk, as its redundancy is confined to the boundaries of that single geographical region.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 881 original AZ-204 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.