AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design business continuity solutions. 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.
A company deploys a multi-tier application on Azure virtual machines. They need to implement disaster recovery using Azure Site Recovery. The recovery plan must ensure that the database VMs are started before the application VMs, and the application VMs before the web VMs. They also need to run a script after failover to update DNS records. Which ASR feature should they use?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Recovery Plan with custom groups and script actions
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) Recovery Plans allow you to orchestrate the order of VM failover by grouping VMs into custom groups and adding pre- and post-actions. By placing database VMs in Group 1, application VMs in Group 2, and web VMs in Group 3, you enforce the required startup sequence. Script actions (e.g., Azure Automation runbooks or PowerShell scripts) can be inserted at specific points in the plan to update DNS records after failover, making option B the correct choice.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Recovery Plan with manual steps
Why it's wrong here
Manual steps require human intervention and do not automate ordering.
✓
Recovery Plan with custom groups and script actions
Why this is correct
Custom groups define ordering, and script actions allow running PowerShell or Azure Automation after failover.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Replication policy with crash-consistent snapshots
Why it's wrong here
Replication policy controls recovery points, not VM startup order or scripts.
✗
Azure Automation runbook
Why it's wrong here
Runbooks alone do not define VM startup order; they must be used within a recovery plan.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse a standalone Azure Automation runbook (which can run scripts but cannot enforce VM startup order) with a script action embedded in a Recovery Plan (which combines both ordering and script execution).
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, ASR Recovery Plans use a dependency graph where each group starts only after all VMs in the previous group have reported as 'started' (based on health probes). Script actions can be either pre- or post-steps for a group, and they execute on the Azure Automation service or via a custom script extension on a designated VM. In real-world scenarios, this ensures that a database tier is fully operational before application servers attempt to connect, preventing connection timeouts and data corruption during failover.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
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.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-305 question in full detail.
Design business continuity solutions — This question tests Design business continuity solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Recovery Plan with custom groups and script actions — Azure Site Recovery (ASR) Recovery Plans allow you to orchestrate the order of VM failover by grouping VMs into custom groups and adding pre- and post-actions. By placing database VMs in Group 1, application VMs in Group 2, and web VMs in Group 3, you enforce the required startup sequence. Script actions (e.g., Azure Automation runbooks or PowerShell scripts) can be inserted at specific points in the plan to update DNS records after failover, making option B the correct choice.
What should I do if I get this AZ-305 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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