AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a solution for a global e-commerce platform that requires low-latency access to product catalog data from multiple regions. The data is read-heavy with occasional updates. The solution must support automatic scaling and provide high availability. Which Azure service should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Azure SQL Database's active geo-replication (which supports only a single write region) with true multi-region writes, or they assume a cache like Redis can serve as the primary data store for a globally distributed, read-heavy workload with occasional updates.
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
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes is the correct choice because it provides global distribution with turnkey multi-master replication, enabling low-latency reads and writes from any Azure region. It supports automatic scaling through request units (RU/s) and offers 99.999% high availability with multiple well-defined consistency levels, making it ideal for a read-heavy, globally distributed e-commerce catalog with occasional updates.
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 SQL Database with active geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Azure SQL Database's active geo-replication creates readable secondary replicas in other regions, but writes remain pinned to a single primary region, and read traffic to secondaries can experience replication lag, making it unsuitable for a global e-commerce platform that demands instant, consistent reads at scale. The relational engine also struggles with the elastic, multi-region write distribution and dynamic throughput requirements of a high-volume, globally distributed store, whereas a purpose-built globally distributed database is needed.
- ✓
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes
Why this is correct
Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes is purpose-built for global distribution, offering turnkey active-active replication across any number of Azure regions. It provides single-digit-millisecond read and write latencies at the 99th percentile, automatic and elastic scaling of throughput and storage, and multiple well-defined consistency models, so a global e-commerce platform can serve users from their nearest region with low latency and high availability, while also supporting multi-region write concurrency for true active-active operation.
- ✗
Azure Table Storage
Why it's wrong here
Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store but it lacks built-in global distribution capabilities such as multi-region writes, automatic multi-region reads, or consistency controls that are essential for a globally distributed e-commerce platform. Its storage is tied to a single region (or a secondary read-only region via RA-GRS) and does not provide the sub-second, automatic routing and low-latency reads across many regions that a global application requires, so it cannot match the performance and global replication promises of a dedicated globally distributed database.
- ✗
Azure Cache for Redis
Why it's wrong here
Azure Cache for Redis is an in-memory caching service, not a durable primary data store; it requires a separate backing database to persist transactional and order data, and it does not natively support multi-region writes or global distribution across geographies. While it can cache frequently read data to reduce latency, it cannot serve as the authoritative data platform for a global e-commerce system, because data loss on restart is unacceptable for orders and inventory, and its multi-region replication capabilities are limited compared with a true globally distributed database.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 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-305 exam.