Design business continuity solutions practice questions

Azure Site Recovery

Why wrong: Incorrect. Azure Site Recovery typically has an RPO of several minutes, which does not meet the sub-15-second requirement.

Azure Backup for SQL Server

Why wrong: Incorrect. Azure Backup provides point-in-time restore but has a typical RPO of hours and RTO that is not suitable for sub-1-hour recovery.

Geo-redundant backups

Why wrong: Incorrect. Geo-redundant backups are for storage-level redundancy and do not provide the required low RPO/RTO for a SQL Server database.

Deploy multiple App Service instances in the same region with Traffic Manager

Why wrong: Incorrect. This provides redundancy within a single region but does not protect against a regional outage.

Use App Service auto-scaling rules to handle increased load

Why wrong: Incorrect. Auto-scaling adjusts capacity within a region, it does not provide cross-region failover.

Enable Azure Site Recovery for the App Service

Why wrong: Incorrect. Azure Site Recovery is designed for virtual machines, not for Azure App Service workloads.

SQL Server Always On Availability Group with asynchronous commit.

Why wrong: Asynchronous commit ensures no impact on primary performance but can result in data loss if a failover occurs before the secondary is synchronized. This option does not guarantee zero RPO.

Azure Site Recovery to another region.

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery typically provides RPO of a few minutes (asynchronous replication). It cannot guarantee zero data loss because replication is not synchronous.

Deploy the VMs in a different availability zone within the same region.

Why wrong: Availability zones protect against datacenter failures within a region, not against a full regional outage. This does not meet the cross-region requirement.

Azure Backup for VMs with geo-redundant backup storage.

Why wrong: Azure Backup provides backups with RPO of daily/weekly and RTO of hours (restore requires building a VM from backup). It cannot achieve the required RTO of 30 minutes and RPO of 15 minutes.

Deploy VMs in an availability zone within the same region.

Why wrong: Availability zones protect against a single datacenter failure but not a full regional outage. They do not provide cross-region disaster recovery.

Use Azure managed disks with geo-replication (LRS to GRS).

Why wrong: Managed disks with GRS replicate the underlying storage pages to a secondary region, but that does not include VM configuration or application state. You would need to recreate the VM and manually activate the data, which can take hours.

Azure Backup

Why wrong: Azure Backup provides backup and restore capabilities but does not include orchestrated failover or replication for disaster recovery.

Azure Migrate

Why wrong: Azure Migrate is used for assessment and migration of on-premises workloads to Azure, not for ongoing disaster recovery replication.

Azure Disaster Recovery

Why wrong: There is no Azure service named 'Azure Disaster Recovery'; the correct service is Azure Site Recovery.

Azure Site Recovery

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery replicates VMs for disaster recovery failover, not for backup with long-term retention or file-level restore.

Azure Snapshot of managed disks stored in a different region

Why wrong: Snapshots are crash-consistent by default, not application-consistent, and do not natively support file-level restore or automatic cross-region replication.

Azure Managed Disk with incremental snapshots and manual cross-region copy

Why wrong: Incremental snapshots are not automatically application-consistent and require manual scripting for cross-region transfer; file-level restore is not supported.

B

Why wrong: Creating a separate Recovery Services vault in North Europe and backing up to both vaults increases cost and complexity. Azure Backup already supports cross-region restore from a single vault.

C

Why wrong: Manually copying backup files to a storage account in another region is not scalable and does not leverage Azure Backup's built-in cross-region restore capabilities.

D

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is for replicating VMs, not for long-term backup retention. Mixing it with Azure Backup for retention is not a standard solution.

A

Why wrong: An availability set spreads VMs across fault domains within a single datacenter. It protects against rack failures but not an entire datacenter failure.

C

Why wrong: Placing VMs in a single zone does not protect against a datacenter failure, and Azure Backup only provides data recovery, not high availability.

D

Why wrong: Deploying across paired regions with Traffic Manager provides disaster recovery, not high availability within the region. It may not meet the 99.99% SLA due to failover time.

B

Why wrong: Azure Disk Encryption encrypts the OS and data disks of a VM but does not automatically encrypt backup data stored in the Recovery Services vault. Backup encryption is independent.

C

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is designed for disaster recovery replication, not long-term backup retention. It is not suitable for meeting the 5-year compliance requirement.

D

Why wrong: Azure Backup encrypts backup data by default with platform-managed keys. Customer-managed key support is available, so this statement is incorrect.

Azure Backup

Why wrong: Azure Backup provides point-in-time backups, not continuous replication, and does not support non-disruptive failover testing.

Azure Traffic Manager

Why wrong: Traffic Manager performs DNS-based traffic routing across regions, not VM replication or failover.

Azure Blueprints

Why wrong: Azure Blueprints is a governance tool for defining repeatable environments, not a disaster recovery solution.

Azure Backup

Why wrong: Azure Backup provides point-in-time backups, not continuous replication, and does not support DR failover and failback.

Azure SQL Database

Why wrong: Azure SQL Database is a managed cloud database, not a DR service for on-premises SQL Server instances.

Azure Traffic Manager

Why wrong: Traffic Manager performs DNS-level load balancing across endpoints, not replication or failover of workloads.

Use Azure Site Recovery for VMs, geo-replication for Azure SQL Database, and geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage.

Why wrong: GRS provides geo-redundant storage but does not offer read access in the secondary region without failover, which could delay recovery. Also, geo-replication for SQL DB is not the standard name; active geo-replication is needed for low RPO.

Use Azure Backup for VMs, geo-redundant storage for SQL Database backups, and geo-redundant storage for Blob Storage.

Why wrong: Azure Backup is designed for backup, not rapid disaster recovery with RTO of less than 1 hour. Backup RTO is typically higher, and it does not provide continuous replication.

Use Azure Front Door with multi-region deployment of VMs and Azure Cosmos DB for the database.

Why wrong: This would require redesigning the application to use Cosmos DB, which is not the current database. The question specifies Azure SQL Database and Blob Storage, so this is not applicable.

Deploy a single AKS cluster with pods spread across availability zones within the region.

Why wrong: Availability zones protect against datacenter failure within a region, not against a full region outage. This does not meet the requirement for regional failover.

Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the AKS cluster to another region.

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is designed for IaaS workloads (VMs), not for managed Kubernetes services like AKS. It cannot replicate the AKS control plane or worker nodes effectively.

Back up the AKS cluster configuration and container images to a geo-redundant storage account.

Why wrong: Backup is appropriate for data retention but will not meet the 15-minute RTO for failover. Restoring from backup in a new region would take significantly longer.

Azure Backup (MARS agent)

Why wrong: Azure Backup is designed for backup, not DR. It can take application-consistent backups but does not support rapid failover with an RTO of less than 4 hours. Failover would require restoring from backup, which takes longer.

Azure Migrate

Why wrong: Azure Migrate is for discovering, assessing, and migrating on-premises workloads to Azure. It does not provide ongoing replication or failover capabilities for DR.

Azure File Sync

Why wrong: Azure File Sync syncs on-premises file servers to Azure file shares. It does not replicate entire physical servers or support failover of applications.

Network mapping and IP customization

Why wrong: These are important for network configuration during failover but do not control startup order or provide drill capabilities.

Replication policy with crash-consistent snapshots

Why wrong: Crash-consistent snapshots are a replication option but do not address startup sequencing or testing.

Azure Automation runbooks and Azure Monitor alerts

Why wrong: Automation runbooks can be used in Recovery Plans, but this combination is incomplete; alerts are not needed for the core requirement.

Azure Backup for Azure VM

Why wrong: VM-level backup provides crash-consistent or file-consistent backups, not application-consistent database backups.

Azure Site Recovery

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is designed for replication and failover/disaster recovery, not for long-term backup retention.

SQL Server Always On Availability Groups

Why wrong: Always On provides high availability and read-scale, not backup management or retention.

Enable read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) on the storage account hosting the database files.

Why wrong: RA-GRS is for Azure Blob Storage, not for SQL Managed Instance database files. It does not provide automatic failover for SQL workloads.

Deploy SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with a synchronous replica in North Europe.

Why wrong: Always On Availability Groups can be configured on SQL Server VMs, but SQL Managed Instance already has built-in high availability. This option adds unnecessary management overhead and does not integrate with the PaaS service.

Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the SQL Managed Instance to a secondary region as a virtual machine.

Why wrong: Azure Site Recovery is for replicating IaaS workloads, not PaaS databases like SQL Managed Instance. It would require deploying SQL Server on VMs, which is not the same service.

Azure Migrate

Why wrong: Azure Migrate is used for discovering, assessing, and migrating on-premises workloads to Azure. It does not provide ongoing replication or disaster recovery failover.

Azure Backup

Why wrong: Azure Backup provides backup and restore, but it does not offer orchestrated failover to Azure or failback. RPO is typically once per day, not 15 minutes.

Azure Recovery Services Vault

Why wrong: The Recovery Services vault is a container used by both Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery. It is not a service itself; you must enable either Backup or Site Recovery within it.

Use Azure File Sync to sync the file share to an on-premises server, and then back up the on-premises server using Azure Backup.

Why wrong: Azure File Sync is for hybrid caching, not for backup. It does not provide automated backups or cross-region restore of the Azure file share itself.

Enable soft delete and versioning on the storage account, and configure replication to a secondary region using RA-GRS.

Why wrong: Soft delete and versioning protect against accidental deletion but do not provide a managed backup service with scheduled backups and cross-region restore. RA-GRS provides read access but not point-in-time restore.

Create a scheduled Azure Automation runbook that takes snapshots of the file share every day and copy them to a storage account in West US.

Why wrong: This custom solution incurs operational overhead and lacks the built-in monitoring, alerting, and restore capabilities of Azure Backup. It also does not provide versioning for individual file restore.

Azure Site Recovery

Why wrong: Site Recovery is designed for disaster recovery and replication, not for long-term backup with point-in-time restore capabilities.

SQL Server managed backup to Azure

Why wrong: While SQL Server managed backup stores backups in Azure, it still requires manual configuration and does not provide the same level of automation and long-term retention management as Azure Backup.

Azure Disk Backup

Why wrong: Disk Backup captures crash-consistent snapshots of virtual disks, not SQL database-consistent backups, and cannot perform point-in-time restore for database transactions.