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 three-tier application on Azure VMs in the West US region. They want to enable disaster recovery to East US using Azure Site Recovery. The application requires that the web tier starts first, then the application tier, and finally the database tier after a consistency check. They also need to be able to perform non-disruptive DR drills. Which Azure Site Recovery capabilities should they use together?
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 the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Recovery Plan with pre/post actions and Test Failover
Option A is correct because a Recovery Plan in Azure Site Recovery allows you to define the startup order of tiers (web, app, database) using pre-actions and post-actions, which can invoke Azure Automation runbooks or scripts to perform the consistency check. Test Failover enables non-disruptive DR drills by creating an isolated copy of the replicated VMs in East US without impacting the production environment. Together, these capabilities meet both the ordered startup and drill requirements.
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.
✓
Recovery Plan with pre/post actions and Test Failover
Why this is correct
Correct. Recovery Plans orchestrate startup order with scripts, and Test Failover allows isolated drills.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "first" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Network mapping and IP customization
Why it's wrong here
These are important for network configuration during failover but do not control startup order or provide drill capabilities.
✗
Replication policy with crash-consistent snapshots
Why it's wrong here
Crash-consistent snapshots are a replication option but do not address startup sequencing or testing.
✗
Azure Automation runbooks and Azure Monitor alerts
Why it's wrong here
Automation runbooks can be used in Recovery Plans, but this combination is incomplete; alerts are not needed for the core requirement.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may confuse general Azure automation or networking features (like runbooks or network mapping) with the specific ASR capabilities required for ordered startup and drills, overlooking that Recovery Plan and Test Failover are the exact ASR features designed for these purposes.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Recovery Plans in ASR support up to 100 VMs per plan and allow grouping with pre-actions (before failover) and post-actions (after failover), which can execute Azure Automation runbooks or custom scripts for tasks like database consistency checks. Test Failover uses a separate isolated network (specified during setup) to validate replication and failover without affecting production, and it automatically cleans up test VMs after completion. This ensures that DR drills are fully non-disruptive and can be repeated regularly.
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.
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: Recovery Plan with pre/post actions and Test Failover — Option A is correct because a Recovery Plan in Azure Site Recovery allows you to define the startup order of tiers (web, app, database) using pre-actions and post-actions, which can invoke Azure Automation runbooks or scripts to perform the consistency check. Test Failover enables non-disruptive DR drills by creating an isolated copy of the replicated VMs in East US without impacting the production environment. Together, these capabilities meet both the ordered startup and drill requirements.
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.
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