A company runs a critical application on Azure SQL Managed Instance in the West US region. They need a disaster recovery solution that provides automatic failover to a secondary region (East US) with no data loss (synchronous replication) and a recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 1 hour. They also want to offload read-only workloads to the secondary during normal operations. Which Azure feature should they implement?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Best answer
Auto-failover groups with synchronous replication
Auto-failover groups for Managed Instance support synchronous replication to a secondary region, ensuring zero data loss. RTO is under 1 hour, and the secondary can be used for read-only workloads.
Distractor review
Active geo-replication
Active geo-replication is not supported for Azure SQL Managed Instance. It is available only for Azure SQL Database single databases and elastic pools.
Distractor review
Geo-restore of backups
Geo-restore uses geo-replicated backups with typical RPO of 1 hour and RTO of several hours, not meeting the requirements for zero data loss and sub-1-hour RTO.
Distractor review
Azure Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery replicates Azure VMs, not Azure SQL Managed Instance. It does not provide database-level replication or read-only secondary.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company is designing hub-and-spoke networking. Spoke VNets must use a central Azure Firewall for outbound internet traffic. Which two configurations are required?
Question 2
A company is designing private access to a PaaS database from workloads in a VNet. The database should not be reachable over its public endpoint. What should be recommended?
Question 3
A data platform must support analytical queries over petabytes of files in a data lake, while preserving hierarchical namespaces and fine-grained ACLs. Which storage service should you design around?
Question 4
A database workload has an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 4 hours. Cost is more important than near-zero data loss. Which design is usually more appropriate than synchronous multi-region replication?
Question 5
A hub-and-spoke Azure network must centralize outbound inspection and still allow spokes to resolve private endpoint DNS names. Which two components are commonly required? (Choose 2.)
Question 6
A multinational company uses Microsoft Entra ID and several Azure subscriptions. Security administrators need to review privileged role assignments every month and require justification for continued access. Which design should be recommended?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-305 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Auto-failover groups with synchronous replication — Azure SQL Managed Instance supports auto-failover groups with synchronous replication using the 'Manual' or 'Automatic' failover policy. With synchronous replication, transactions are committed on both primary and secondary, ensuring zero data loss. The RTO is typically under 1 hour. The secondary can be used for read-only queries (via read scale-out). Active geo-replication is not available for Managed Instance. Geo-restore has longer RPO/RTO. Azure Site Recovery does not replicate Azure SQL Managed Instance at the database level.
What should I do if I get this AZ-305 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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