AZ-305 Azure Backup with GRS Practice Question
A multinational corporation is designing a backup and disaster recovery strategy for Azure IaaS VMs. The solution must support cross-region failover, meet a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes, and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour. Which TWO options should you include in the design?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often mistakenly pair Azure Backup with ZRS thinking it provides cross-region redundancy, but ZRS is zone-redundant, not geo-redundant. Additionally, they may overlook that Azure Site Recovery is essential for orchestrated failover with low RTO, while Azure Backup alone (even with GRS) requires a restore operation that may not meet the 1-hour RTO.
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 Backup with geo-redundant storage (GRS)
Azure Backup with geo-redundant storage (GRS) (A) is correct because GRS replicates backup data to a secondary Azure region hundreds of miles away, enabling cross-region restore and satisfying the cross-region failover requirement while supporting the 15-minute RPO through frequent backup schedules. Azure Site Recovery (E) is correct because it continuously replicates IaaS VM disks to a target region and can orchestrate failover with RTOs typically under an hour, directly meeting the 1-hour RTO and 15-minute RPO objectives. Azure Backup with LRS (B) is incorrect because locally redundant storage keeps three copies within a single datacenter in one region, providing no cross-region protection. Managed disk snapshots (C) are incorrect because they are stored regionally and are not a cross-region DR mechanism by themselves. Azure Backup with ZRS (D) is incorrect because zone-redundant storage only replicates across availability zones within one region, not across regions.
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 Backup with geo-redundant storage (GRS)
Why this is correct
Azure Backup with GRS replicates backup data to a secondary region, meeting the cross-region failover requirement and RPO of 15 minutes.
- ✗
Azure Backup with locally redundant storage (LRS)
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup with LRS does not provide cross-region redundancy and cannot support cross-region failover, so it is incorrect.
- ✗
Managed disk snapshots
Why it's wrong here
Managed disk snapshots alone do not provide automated cross-region replication or failover orchestration, making them insufficient for the required RTO.
- ✗
Azure Backup with zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup with ZRS provides resilience within a region across availability zones but does not support cross-region failover, which is a key requirement.
- ✓
Azure Site Recovery
Why this is correct
Azure Site Recovery provides continuous replication to a secondary region and orchestrated failover, meeting both the RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 1 hour, essential for cross-region failover.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Designing Backup and Recovery
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.
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.
About these practice questions
One of 795 original AZ-305 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.