AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
A company runs an Azure SQL Database in a single region. They need to ensure that the database can be restored to any point in time within the last 90 minutes with a granularity of 1 minute. Which feature should they enable?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse point-in-time restore with disaster recovery features like geo-replication or failover groups, but the question specifically asks for restoring to a point in time within 90 minutes with 1-minute granularity, which is exclusively provided by PITR.
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
✓
Point-in-time restore
Point-in-time restore (PITR) for Azure SQL Database automatically creates backups every 5-10 minutes and retains them for the default retention period of 7 days (configurable up to 35 days). This allows restoring the database to any second within the retention window, meeting the requirement of 1-minute granularity for the last 90 minutes. The feature is built-in and does not require any additional configuration beyond setting the desired retention period.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Active geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication continuously replicates a single Azure SQL database to a secondary server in a different region using asynchronous replication. While the secondary is readable and can be used for manual failover, this feature is a disaster-recovery mechanism, not a backup or restore capability. Because changes are constantly applied, it cannot roll the database back to a specific past point in time, so it does not meet the 1-minute granularity requirement.
- ✗
Auto-failover groups
Why it's wrong here
Auto-failover groups provide group-level disaster recovery orchestration, automatically promoting a secondary database if the primary becomes unavailable. Their purpose is to manage availability and connectivity through a failover listener, not to preserve or recover historical data states. A failover simply moves to the latest replicated state and cannot restore to an arbitrary second within the retention period, which disqualifies it from satisfying the point-in-time recovery requirement.
- ✓
Point-in-time restore
Why this is correct
Point-in-time restore leverages Azure SQL Database's automatic backups—full, differential, and transaction log backups taken every 5–10 minutes—to recreate a database at any second within the configured retention period (default 7 days, up to 35 days). You specify a target timestamp, and Azure calculates the precise log sequence number, restores the nearest full backup, and replays transaction logs to that point. This exactly matches the 1-minute granularity requested, making it the correct solution for recovering a recent data corruption or accidental deletion.
- ✗
Long-term backup retention
Why it's wrong here
Long-term backup retention (LTR) is an add-on that stores full backups with weekly, monthly, and yearly frequency for up to 10 years, primarily to satisfy regulatory and compliance requirements. Its retention granularity is based on that backup schedule, not on continuous transaction logs, so it cannot restore a database to any specific recent second. While LTR complements point-in-time restore by providing archival copies, it is far too coarse for operational recovery within a 1-minute recovery window.
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