A company runs a critical database on Azure SQL Database in the West US region. They need to implement disaster recovery to East US with an RPO of 1 minute and RTO of 1 hour. They also want to use the secondary database for read-only workloads during normal operations. The solution must be fully managed. Which Azure SQL Database feature should they enable?
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.
Distractor review
Geo-restore
Geo-restore recovers from a backup and has an RPO of 1 hour or more, not 1 minute.
Best answer
Auto-failover group with read-scale
Auto-failover groups manage failover for one or more databases, support read-only access to the secondary, and meet the RPO/RTO requirements.
Distractor review
Active geo-replication with failover group
While active geo-replication provides readable secondaries, auto-failover group is the managed feature that simplifies failover and supports read-scale.
Distractor review
Zone-redundant configuration
Zone redundancy protects against datacenter failures within a region, not across regions.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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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?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Auto-failover group with read-scale — Auto-failover groups with read-scale allow the secondary database to be readable and provide a managed failover experience. The RPO is typically less than 1 minute (async replication). Active geo-replication also supports readable secondaries, but auto-failover groups offer simpler management and coordination of multiple databases. Geo-restore has a much longer RPO/RTO. Zone redundancy does not provide cross-region DR.
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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