AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a solution for storing sensitive financial records that must be retained for 7 years. The solution must meet the following requirements: - Data must be immutable during the retention period. - After the retention period, data must be automatically deleted. - The solution must minimize storage costs. Which two Azure services should the company use? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often think a single service like immutable storage alone handles deletion, but they overlook that immutability prevents deletion unless explicitly combined with lifecycle management to trigger automatic removal after the retention period ends.
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 Blob Storage lifecycle management
Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management (B) is correct because it allows you to define rules to automatically delete blobs after a specified period, such as 7 years, minimizing storage costs by tiering or expiring data. Azure Blob Storage with immutable storage policy (D) is correct because it enforces WORM (Write Once, Read Many) immutability, preventing data modification or deletion during the retention period, which is essential for sensitive financial records.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Data Map
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Data Map is a metadata curation and classification service that registers data assets and builds a lineage/glossary, not a storage or retention backend. It cannot enforce time-based deletion or write-once-read-many (WORM) semantics on stored blobs, files, or shares, so it fails to satisfy a storage-level compliance requirement for sensitive financial data.
- ✓
Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management
Why this is correct
Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management automatically transitions blobs to Cool, Cold, or Archive tiers and executes user-defined deletion rules based on blob age, last modification, or index tags. For sensitive financial records that must be purged after a regulatory retention window, a lifecycle rule with an 'expire' action removes the blobs at the exact scheduled time, providing a cost-effective, fully managed deletion mechanism without manual cleanup.
- ✗
Azure NetApp Files with replication
Why it's wrong here
Azure NetApp Files replication asynchronously copies volumes to a secondary region to protect against regional outages or hardware failures, but it does not make data immutable or enforce a mandatory retention period. The replica is a normal read-write volume that can be modified, deleted, or overwritten, nor does it provide time-based expiration, so it cannot serve as a compliance deletion or tamper-proof storage solution.
- ✓
Azure Blob Storage with immutable storage policy
Why this is correct
Azure Blob Storage immutable storage policies implement write-once-read-many (WORM) governance, blocking any modification or deletion of blobs during a defined retention interval, which is essential for records that must be retained without risk of tampering. The policy can be applied at the container level and supports both time-based retention and legal hold, making it a strong compliance control; however, on its own it will not automatically delete blobs after the retention period unless a separate lifecycle rule is configured.
- ✗
Azure Files with snapshots
Why it's wrong here
Azure Files snapshots are point-in-time, read-only copies of a share used for crash consistency and quick disaster recovery, but they are not immutable in a governance sense—they can be listed, deleted, or restored over by an administrator, and no time-based retention lock is enforced natively. For regulatory data that must be both unalterable and automatically expired, snapshots fall short because they lack WORM semantics and lifecycle-based deletion scheduling.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
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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.