AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design business continuity solutions. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 SQL Server database on an Azure VM in West Europe. They need to back up the database daily and retain backups for 7 years for compliance. They also require the ability to restore the database to a secondary Azure region (North Europe) if the primary region fails. They want to minimize operational overhead and costs. Which Azure Backup configuration should they use?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Clue: "minimum / minimize"
Why it matters: Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.
Use Azure Backup to back up SQL Server to a Recovery Services vault in West Europe and enable cross-region restore to North Europe. This is the recommended approach for backup resilience across regions.
B
B
Why wrong: Creating a separate Recovery Services vault in North Europe and backing up to both vaults increases cost and complexity. Azure Backup already supports cross-region restore from a single vault.
C
C
Why wrong: Manually copying backup files to a storage account in another region is not scalable and does not leverage Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore capabilities.
D
D
Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is for replicating VMs, not for long-term backup retention. Mixing it with Azure Backup for retention is not a standard solution.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
A
Option A is correct because Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore (CRR) for Azure VMs allows you to restore SQL Server databases hosted on Azure VMs to a paired secondary region (North Europe) in the event of a disaster, while retaining backups for up to 10 years (covering the 7-year compliance requirement). This configuration minimizes operational overhead by using Azure Backup's native policy-based scheduling and storage management, and it is cost-effective as it uses geo-redundant storage (GRS) for the Recovery Services vault without needing a separate backup infrastructure.
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
Why this is correct
Use Azure Backup to back up SQL Server to a Recovery Services vault in West Europe and enable cross-region restore to North Europe. This is the recommended approach for backup resilience across regions.
Clue confirmation
The clue words "primary", "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
B
Why it's wrong here
Creating a separate Recovery Services vault in North Europe and backing up to both vaults increases cost and complexity. Azure Backup already supports cross-region restore from a single vault.
✗
C
Why it's wrong here
Manually copying backup files to a storage account in another region is not scalable and does not leverage Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore capabilities.
✗
D
Why it's wrong here
Azure Site Recovery is for replicating VMs, not for long-term backup retention. Mixing it with Azure Backup for retention is not a standard solution.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Site Recovery (ASR) with Azure Backup, thinking ASR can handle long-term backup retention, when in fact ASR is for replication and failover, not for point-in-time restores with multi-year retention, and they may overlook the need to explicitly enable cross-region restore (CRR) on the Recovery Services vault to meet the secondary region recovery requirement.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VMs uses a native extension that coordinates with SQL Writer for VSS-based application-consistent backups, and when combined with cross-region restore (CRR), the backup data is automatically replicated to the paired region using Azure's geo-redundant storage (GRS). The retention policy can be configured for up to 10 years using a combination of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backup points, and the restore process to the secondary region is triggered via the Azure portal or PowerShell, leveraging the replicated backup metadata without requiring a separate vault in the secondary region.
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 startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-305 question in full detail.
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 — Option A is correct because Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore (CRR) for Azure VMs allows you to restore SQL Server databases hosted on Azure VMs to a paired secondary region (North Europe) in the event of a disaster, while retaining backups for up to 10 years (covering the 7-year compliance requirement). This configuration minimizes operational overhead by using Azure Backup's native policy-based scheduling and storage management, and it is cost-effective as it uses geo-redundant storage (GRS) for the Recovery Services vault without needing a separate backup infrastructure.
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: "primary", "minimum / minimize". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
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 →
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.
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.