AZ-305 Auto-failover groups Practice Question
A company uses Azure SQL Database for a critical OLTP workload. They need a disaster recovery solution that automatically fails over to a secondary region with an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 1 hour. What should they implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is that candidates may pick active geo-replication (option B) thinking it provides automatic failover, but it only replicates data. The automatic failover capability is provided by auto-failover groups (option C). The question requires both the RPO from replication and the RTO from automatic failover, so auto-failover groups are the correct answer.
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
✓
Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups
Auto-failover groups in Azure SQL Database provide automatic failover across regions, leveraging active geo-replication under the hood. This combination achieves an RPO of up to 5 seconds (from active geo-replication) and an RTO of 1 hour (from the auto-failover group). Active geo-replication alone does not automate failover, which is required for the disaster recovery solution. Zone-redundant configuration protects only within a region, not cross-region. Managed Instance failover groups are for Azure SQL Managed Instance, not for Azure SQL Database, and have different RPO/RTO characteristics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Azure SQL Database zone-redundant configuration
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant configuration replicates across availability zones within one region, so a regional outage still takes the database offline. It is the right choice for surviving a datacentre-level failure inside a single region, not for cross-region disaster recovery with automatic failover.
- ✗
Azure SQL Database active geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication supports up to four secondaries but failover is manual; it cannot automatically fail over to meet the stated requirement. It suits read-scaleout and manual DR drills, where an operator triggers failover, rather than the automatic regional failover this scenario demands.
- ✓
Azure SQL Database auto-failover groups
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups replicate databases to a secondary region and provide a listener endpoint that redirects connections automatically during an outage. This delivers the required sub-five-second RPO and one-hour RTO without manual intervention, unlike geo-restore or active geo-replication alone.
- ✗
Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups
Why it's wrong here
Failover groups are an Azure SQL Database feature; Managed Instance failover groups require the workload to run on a Managed Instance, which this company does not use. They would be correct if the OLTP database were hosted on Azure SQL Managed Instance rather than Azure SQL Database.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Designing Relational Database Solutions
Key term
BIA and RPO RTO Design
Business Impact Analysis and the design of Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective define how much data loss and downtime a business can tolerate after an IT failure, guiding the architecture of backup and disaster recovery systems.
Key term
Azure Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery is a Microsoft Azure service that keeps your business applications and data running by automatically replicating them to a secondary location and failing over if the primary site goes down.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.