Azure SQL Database Disaster Recovery Using Active Geo-Replication and Auto-Failover
Which THREE components are required to implement a disaster recovery solution for Azure SQL Database using failover groups? (Choose three.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse active geo-replication with failover groups, thinking both are required, when in fact failover groups subsume the replication functionality and provide a simpler management model with automatic failover capabilities.
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
✓
A failover group that includes both servers
A failover group is the core orchestration component that manages the replication and automatic or manual failover of multiple databases between a primary and secondary Azure SQL Database server. It requires both a primary server in one region and a secondary server in another region to be included in the group, enabling a coordinated disaster recovery plan with a defined failover policy.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
A failover group that includes both servers
Why this is correct
A failover group is the coordination element: it binds a primary and secondary logical server into a single unit and owns the geo-replication relationships between their databases. It also exposes a writable listener endpoint and, optionally, a read-only endpoint, which means client applications can fail over without changing connection strings. Without this object, you would have no unified policy or endpoint to orchestrate regional failover.
- ✓
A secondary Azure SQL Database server in another region
Why this is correct
The secondary logical server in a different Azure region provides the destination for replicated copies of your databases and acts as the failover target for availability. During a regional outage, Azure SQL Database promotes this server's databases to become the new primary without operator intervention if automatic failover is enabled. A geographically separate server is therefore a hard requirement; an in-region secondary cannot deliver regional disaster recovery.
- ✗
Zone-redundant configuration on the primary database
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant configuration, which distributes database replicas across availability zones inside one region, addresses zone-level failures, not regional outages. A failover group is designed to protect against loss of an entire Azure region, so a zone-redundant primary database is irrelevant to the failover group's required components. It might improve local high availability, but it neither creates nor replaces a secondary location in another region.
- ✓
A primary Azure SQL Database server in one region
Why this is correct
The primary logical server is the original host of the databases that will participate in the failover group and continues to serve the read/write workload under normal operations. It must be selected first when creating the failover group, and Azure uses it to create the corresponding secondary databases on the target server. Without a defined primary, there is no source database, no replication role assignment, and nothing for the failover group to manage.
- ✗
Active geo-replication configured on the primary database
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication is the same replication technology that underlies failover groups, but manually enabling it on the primary database is not a separate required prerequisite. When you add a database to a failover group, Azure automatically creates and manages the geo-replication link to the secondary server; pre-configuring it only creates a redundant, less coordinated setup. Geo-replication alone also lacks the group-level listener endpoint and coordinated failover for multiple databases, so it cannot substitute for the failover group component.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Disaster Recovery Patterns: Active-Active vs Active-Passive
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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