AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
Contoso Ltd. runs a mission-critical application on Azure Virtual Machines in the East US region. The application uses Azure SQL Database (Business Critical tier) and stores files in Azure Blob Storage (hot tier). The business requires a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 minutes for the application. For SQL Database, they need the ability to fail over to a secondary region with no data loss. For Blob Storage, they need to maintain read access to data even if the primary region fails. The solution must be cost-optimized and not exceed the RTO/RPO. Which combination of services should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse geo-redundant storage (GRS) with read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS), assuming GRS provides read access during a failure, when in fact it only allows a write failover that requires a manual process and does not maintain continuous read access.
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 SQL Database active geo-replication with a secondary in a paired region, and use read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) for Blob Storage.
Active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database supports an RPO of 5 minutes with no data loss during failover to a secondary paired region, meeting the business-critical requirement. Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) provides read access to data in the secondary region even if the primary fails, satisfying the Blob Storage requirement. This combination is cost-optimized as it avoids unnecessary services like Site Recovery for VMs, which are not required for the stated RTO/RPO.
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 SQL Database failover groups with automatic failover, and use geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage.
Why it's wrong here
Failover groups use asynchronous replication, which could result in data loss exceeding RPO; GRS does not provide read access during a primary region failure.
- ✗
Deploy Azure Site Recovery for VMs, configure Azure SQL Database failover groups, and use geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS) for Blob Storage.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Site Recovery for SQL Database is unnecessary and adds cost; failover groups with asynchronous replication may exceed RPO.
- ✗
Configure Azure SQL Database geo-restore for the database, and use zone-redundant storage (ZRS) for Blob Storage.
Why it's wrong here
Geo-restore has RTO of hours, not 15 minutes; ZRS only protects within a region, not across regions.
- ✓
Configure Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with a secondary in a paired region, and use read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) for Blob Storage.
Why this is correct
Active geo-replication provides synchronous replication for zero data loss, and RA-GRS allows read access during a regional outage, meeting RTO/RPO.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
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
Data Replication Strategy
A data replication strategy is a plan for copying and synchronizing data across multiple locations to ensure availability, durability, and performance.
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