Azure Site Recovery for VMs — Disaster Recovery with SQL Database
Contoso Ltd. runs a mission-critical application on Azure VMs in the West US region. They require an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 1 hour in case of a regional disaster. They plan to use Azure Site Recovery. The application stores data on managed disks and uses a Premium SSD v2 disk for the database. The application also uses Azure SQL Database for some transactional data. What should Contoso do to meet the recovery objectives for the entire solution?
Quick Answer
The correct choice is to configure Azure Site Recovery for the VMs with Premium SSD v2 disks and configure active geo-replication with auto-failover groups for Azure SQL Database. This works because Azure Site Recovery fully supports replicating Premium SSD v2 managed disks to meet the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO for the VMs, while active geo-replication with auto-failover groups handles the Azure SQL Database separately, achieving an RPO as low as 5 seconds and an RTO within one hour. On the AZ-305 exam, this scenario tests your understanding that Azure Site Recovery does not replicate PaaS databases like Azure SQL Database; you must pair it with native database disaster recovery features. A common trap is assuming ASR covers everything, but it only handles IaaS VMs and their disks. Remember the memory tip: “ASR for VMs, geo-replication for DBs” — each service owns its layer of the recovery stack.
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume Azure Site Recovery can replicate Azure SQL Database (a PaaS service) or that Azure Backup provides low enough RPO/RTO for mission-critical workloads, but ASR only works for IaaS VMs, and Backup is designed for long-term retention, not rapid recovery.
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
✓
Configure Azure Site Recovery for the VMs with Premium SSD v2 disks and configure active geo-replication with auto-failover groups for Azure SQL Database.
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) supports Premium SSD v2 disks for VM replication, enabling an RPO of 15 minutes and RTO of 1 hour for the VMs. For Azure SQL Database, active geo-replication with auto-failover groups provides a regional disaster recovery solution with an RPO of seconds and RTO of about 1 hour, meeting the stated objectives. This combination covers both the managed disk data and the transactional data in Azure SQL Database.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure Azure Site Recovery for the VMs with Premium SSD v2 disks and configure active geo-replication with auto-failover groups for Azure SQL Database.
Why this is correct
ASR supports Premium SSD v2 disks; Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with auto-failover groups meets the RPO/RTO.
- ✗
Use Azure Backup for the VMs and configure long-term retention for the Azure SQL Database backups.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup does not provide the low RPO/RTO required; it is for backup, not disaster recovery replication.
- ✗
Configure Azure Site Recovery for the VMs and also for the Azure SQL Database by adding it to the replication group.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Site Recovery does not support replicating Azure SQL Database; ASR only covers IaaS VMs.
- ✗
Deploy the application across two Azure regions using Azure Front Door and active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database.
Why it's wrong here
This does not include VM replication; the VMs would not be automatically failed over.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Designing Azure Storage 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.
About these practice questions
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on AZ-305
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Your organization has a critical application deployed on Azure VMs in the West US region. The application uses a Standard_D8s_v3 VM with two data disks (512 GB each) and a separate log disk (256 GB). The application writes data continuously to the data disks and logs. The business continuity requirements are: RPO of 15 minutes, RTO of 2 hours, and the ability to recover to a specific point in time within the last 7 days. You need to design a disaster recovery solution that replicates the VMs and disks to the East US region. The solution must also support failback to West US after a disaster. What should you do?
medium- ✓ A.Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the VMs to East US with a recovery plan that includes the VM and disks, and configure failback using reprotection
- B.Use Azure Migrate to migrate the VMs to East US and then set up replication back to West US
- C.Configure Azure Backup for the VMs with a backup policy that has a 15-minute frequency and replicate backups to the East US region using geo-redundant storage
- D.Use Azure Storage geo-redundant storage (GRS) for the managed disks and manually attach the disks to a new VM in East US during a disaster
Why A: Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is the correct service for orchestrating replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs between regions. It supports the required RPO of 15 minutes (using near-synchronous replication with change tracking) and RTO of 2 hours, and allows point-in-time recovery via recovery points. The reprotection and failback workflow enables you to replicate back to West US after a disaster, meeting the full business continuity requirements.
Variation 2. Your organization has a critical application running on Azure Virtual Machines. You need to design a backup and disaster recovery strategy. Which TWO options should you include in your design to meet a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour? (Choose two.)
medium- A.Store data in Azure Files and use Azure File Sync for replication.
- ✓ B.Implement Azure Site Recovery with replication to a secondary region.
- C.Use Azure Traffic Manager to distribute traffic between regions.
- D.Configure Azure Backup for daily backups with geo-redundant storage.
- ✓ E.Enable application-consistent snapshots for the VMs within the replication policy.
Why B: Azure Site Recovery (ASR) replicates Azure VMs to a secondary region with configurable recovery points. By enabling application-consistent snapshots within the replication policy, you can achieve an RPO of 15 minutes (snapshot frequency) and an RTO of 1 hour (failover time), meeting the stated requirements.
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.