- A
Azure Backup for VMs with geo-redundant backup storage.
Why wrong: Azure Backup provides backups with RPO of daily/weekly and RTO of hours (restore requires building a VM from backup). It cannot achieve the required RTO of 30 minutes and RPO of 15 minutes.
- B
Azure Site Recovery to another region.
Azure Site Recovery replicates VMs continuously to a secondary region. It can achieve RPO as low as 15 seconds (with app-consistent snapshots) and RTO of minutes (30 minutes is typical). It supports planned and unplanned failover.
- C
Deploy VMs in an availability zone within the same region.
Why wrong: Availability zones protect against a single datacenter failure but not a full regional outage. They do not provide cross-region disaster recovery.
- D
Use Azure managed disks with geo-replication (LRS to GRS).
Why wrong: Managed disks with GRS replicate the underlying storage pages to a secondary region, but that does not include VM configuration or application state. You would need to recreate the VM and manually activate the data, which can take hours.
Quick Answer
The answer is Azure Site Recovery to another region. This is the correct choice because Azure Site Recovery (ASR) provides continuous, block-level replication of Azure VMs to a secondary region, enabling orchestrated failover that meets a recovery time objective (RTO) of 30 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes, even during a full regional outage. Azure Backup, by contrast, is designed for periodic snapshot-based backup and retention, not for rapid, cross-region failover with such tight recovery objectives. On the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ-305 exam, this question tests your ability to distinguish between disaster recovery and backup services—a common trap is confusing Azure Backup’s long-term retention capabilities with ASR’s low-latency replication. Remember the memory tip: “Backup for yesterday, Site Recovery for right now.”
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 runs a critical application on Azure Virtual Machines in a single availability set. They want to protect against an entire Azure region failure. They need a recovery time objective (RTO) of 30 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. Which solution should they use?
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 Site Recovery to another region.
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) provides orchestrated replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs to a secondary region, enabling a recovery time objective (RTO) of 30 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes as required. ASR replicates VM disks continuously to the target region, and in a regional failure, you can initiate a planned or unplanned failover to bring up the application within the specified RTO/RPO. This is the only option that offers both cross-region disaster recovery and the granular recovery objectives stated.
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.
- ✗
Azure Backup for VMs with geo-redundant backup storage.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup provides backups with RPO of daily/weekly and RTO of hours (restore requires building a VM from backup). It cannot achieve the required RTO of 30 minutes and RPO of 15 minutes.
- ✓
Azure Site Recovery to another region.
Why this is correct
Azure Site Recovery replicates VMs continuously to a secondary region. It can achieve RPO as low as 15 seconds (with app-consistent snapshots) and RTO of minutes (30 minutes is typical). It supports planned and unplanned failover.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Deploy VMs in an availability zone within the same region.
Why it's wrong here
Availability zones protect against a single datacenter failure but not a full regional outage. They do not provide cross-region disaster recovery.
- ✗
Use Azure managed disks with geo-replication (LRS to GRS).
Why it's wrong here
Managed disks with GRS replicate the underlying storage pages to a secondary region, but that does not include VM configuration or application state. You would need to recreate the VM and manually activate the data, which can take hours.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Backup (which provides long-term retention with geo-redundancy) with Azure Site Recovery (which provides near-synchronous replication and automated failover), leading them to select Option A despite its inability to meet the strict RTO/RPO requirements.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Site Recovery uses continuous replication with a default RPO of 30 seconds for Azure VM replication, which easily meets the 15-minute RPO requirement. During failover, ASR creates VMs in the target region using the replicated disks, and you can configure recovery plans with custom scripts and manual actions to meet the 30-minute RTO. A subtle behavior is that ASR replication uses change tracking at the disk level (via the Azure Site Recovery Mobility service or native Azure VM replication), and the RPO can be affected by disk write rates or network latency, so you must monitor replication health to ensure compliance with the stated objectives.
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.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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Design business continuity solutions — study guide chapter
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-305 question test?
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: Azure Site Recovery to another region. — Azure Site Recovery (ASR) provides orchestrated replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs to a secondary region, enabling a recovery time objective (RTO) of 30 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes as required. ASR replicates VM disks continuously to the target region, and in a regional failure, you can initiate a planned or unplanned failover to bring up the application within the specified RTO/RPO. This is the only option that offers both cross-region disaster recovery and the granular recovery objectives stated.
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.
About these practice questions
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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.
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