- A
A recovery plan, planned failover, and network mapping
Why wrong: Planned failover is used for expected outages and does not address IP retention or testing; network mapping only maps source to target networks but does not preserve IP addresses.
- B
A recovery plan, test failover, and network mapping
Why wrong: Test failover allows testing, but network mapping alone does not ensure IP address retention; you need to explicitly assign static IPs in the target subnet.
- C
A recovery plan, test failover, and static IP address assignment
Recovery Plan defines the order and includes scripting; test failover enables safe testing; static IP assignment in the target network ensures VMs keep their IP addresses after failover.
- D
A recovery plan, planned failover, and static IP address assignment
Why wrong: Planned failover is not suitable for testing because it requires source VMs to be shut down; test failover is the correct feature for non-disruptive testing.
Quick Answer
The correct answer is a recovery plan, test failover, and static IP address assignment. A recovery plan in Azure Site Recovery enforces the precise VM startup order—database first, then application, then web—which is critical for multi-tier application consistency during failover. Static IP address assignment ensures that VMs retain their private IP addresses after failing over to East US, eliminating DNS propagation delays and meeting the strict RTO of 15 minutes. Test failover allows periodic validation of the recovery process in an isolated environment without impacting production, satisfying the RPO of 5 minutes. On the AZ-305 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how recovery plans orchestrate dependencies, while static IP assignment addresses network continuity—a common trap is assuming dynamic IPs suffice for mission-critical apps. Remember the mnemonic “RST”: Recovery plan for order, Static IP for retention, Test failover for validation.
AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design business continuity solutions. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 mission-critical multi-tier application on Azure VMs in West US. The application consists of database VMs, application VMs, and web VMs. During a disaster, the VMs must be recovered in a specific order: database tier first, then application tier, then web tier. The recovery point objective (RPO) is 5 minutes and recovery time objective (RTO) is 15 minutes. The company wants to periodically test the recovery process without impacting production. After failover to East US, the VMs must retain their private IP addresses to avoid DNS propagation delays. Which combination of Azure Site Recovery features should they configure?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue:
"first"Why it matters: Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
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
A recovery plan, test failover, and static IP address assignment
Option C is correct because a recovery plan enforces the required startup order (database → application → web), test failover allows non-disruptive validation of the recovery process, and static IP address assignment ensures VMs retain their private IP addresses after failover to East US, avoiding DNS propagation delays. This combination meets the RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 15 minutes while satisfying the requirement for periodic testing without impacting production.
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.
- ✗
A recovery plan, planned failover, and network mapping
Why it's wrong here
Planned failover is used for expected outages and does not address IP retention or testing; network mapping only maps source to target networks but does not preserve IP addresses.
- ✗
A recovery plan, test failover, and network mapping
Why it's wrong here
Test failover allows testing, but network mapping alone does not ensure IP address retention; you need to explicitly assign static IPs in the target subnet.
- ✓
A recovery plan, test failover, and static IP address assignment
Why this is correct
Recovery Plan defines the order and includes scripting; test failover enables safe testing; static IP assignment in the target network ensures VMs keep their IP addresses after failover.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "first" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
A recovery plan, planned failover, and static IP address assignment
Why it's wrong here
Planned failover is not suitable for testing because it requires source VMs to be shut down; test failover is the correct feature for non-disruptive testing.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse network mapping (which only maps source to target networks) with static IP address assignment (which preserves the exact private IP), leading them to choose Option B instead of C.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) recovery plans allow you to group VMs into tiers and specify dependencies using PowerShell or Azure Automation runbooks, ensuring sequential startup. Static IP address assignment in ASR is configured per VM in the 'Compute and Network' settings of the replication item, where you can specify a target IP address that will be assigned on failover, overriding any dynamic assignment from the target virtual network. This is critical for applications that rely on hard-coded IP addresses or where DNS propagation delays (which can take minutes to hours) are unacceptable for a 15-minute RTO.
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.
- →
Design business continuity solutions — study guide chapter
Learn the concepts, then practise the questions
- →
Design business continuity solutions practice questions
Targeted practice on this topic area only
- →
All AZ-305 questions
999 questions across all exam domains
- →
Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ-305 study guide
Full concept coverage aligned to exam objectives
- →
AZ-305 practice test guide
How to use practice tests most effectively before exam day
Related practice questions
Related AZ-305 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions.
Design data storage solutions practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to Design data storage solutions.
Design business continuity solutions practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to Design business continuity solutions.
Design infrastructure solutions practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to Design infrastructure solutions.
SAA-C03 VPC practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 VPC.
SAA-C03 S3 lifecycle policy questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 S3 lifecycle policy questions.
SAA-C03 RDS Multi-AZ questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 RDS Multi-AZ questions.
SAA-C03 IAM policy practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 IAM policy.
SAA-C03 Route 53 failover questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 Route 53 failover questions.
SAA-C03 CloudFront practice questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 CloudFront.
SAA-C03 NAT gateway questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 NAT gateway questions.
SAA-C03 VPC endpoint questions
Practise AZ-305 questions linked to SAA-C03 VPC endpoint questions.
Practice this exam
Start a free AZ-305 practice session
Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.
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: A recovery plan, test failover, and static IP address assignment — Option C is correct because a recovery plan enforces the required startup order (database → application → web), test failover allows non-disruptive validation of the recovery process, and static IP address assignment ensures VMs retain their private IP addresses after failover to East US, avoiding DNS propagation delays. This combination meets the RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 15 minutes while satisfying the requirement for periodic testing without impacting production.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "first". Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more ways this is tested on AZ-305
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company runs a mission-critical application on Azure VMs in West US. They need a disaster recovery plan with an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 30 minutes. The application consists of multiple VMs that must be recovered in a specific order: the database VM first, then the front-end VMs. They also need to ensure that after failover, the IP addresses of the VMs are retained to avoid DNS propagation delays. The company wants to test the recovery process periodically without affecting production. Which Azure Site Recovery features should they use?
hard- ✓ A.Use recovery plans with virtual machine group ordering and failover network settings to assign static IPs.
- B.Use failover settings with retention IP and test failover.
- C.Use recovery plans with custom scripts for ordering and Azure Traffic Manager for IP retention.
- D.Use Azure Site Recovery with Application Consistent Snapshots and ignore IP retention.
Why A: Option A is correct because Azure Site Recovery recovery plans allow you to define the order of VM recovery using groups, and you can assign static IP addresses via failover network settings to retain IPs after failover. This meets the RPO of 5 minutes (via continuous replication) and RTO of 30 minutes (via orchestrated failover), while test failover can be performed without impacting production.
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.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.