The answer is Azure Site Recovery with recovery plans, because this service uniquely combines VM replication to a secondary region with the orchestration needed to enforce a specific startup order. Recovery plans allow you to group VMs into tiers—such as database and web—and define dependencies, ensuring the database tier boots before the web tier, while ASR’s replication meets the 30-minute RTO by enabling rapid failover. On the AZ-305 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of disaster recovery design for multi-tier applications, often appearing as a distractor where candidates might choose Azure Backup or Traffic Manager alone. A common trap is forgetting that replication alone doesn’t control startup sequencing; recovery plans provide that critical automation. Memory tip: think “ASR + Recovery Plans = Replication + Order,” or simply “DB first, web second, ASR orchestrates.”
AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design business continuity solutions. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a global e-commerce platform on Azure VMs in a single region. They need to replicate the VMs to a secondary region for disaster recovery. Recovery must be possible within 30 minutes of a failure. The VMs run custom software that must be started in a specific order (database tier before web tier). Which Azure service should they use to meet both the replication and orchestration requirements?
Azure Site Recovery replicates VMs to a secondary region and recovery plans enable defining startup order, achieving the required RTO of 30 minutes.
B
Azure Backup with cross-region restore
Why wrong: Azure Backup provides backups, not continuous replication, and cross-region restore typically results in longer RTO (hours) and does not support startup order orchestration.
C
Azure Migrate with replication
Why wrong: Azure Migrate is a migration tool, not a disaster recovery tool; it does not provide ongoing replication and failover orchestration.
D
Azure Automation runbooks
Why wrong: Azure Automation runbooks can automate tasks but do not provide VM replication or failover capabilities.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Azure Site Recovery with recovery plans
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) with recovery plans is the correct choice because it provides both VM replication to a secondary region and the ability to orchestrate the startup order of VMs. Recovery plans allow you to group VMs into tiers (e.g., database and web) and define dependencies, ensuring the database tier starts before the web tier. ASR meets the 30-minute recovery time objective (RTO) by enabling failover to the secondary region within that timeframe.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 Site Recovery with recovery plans
Why this is correct
Azure Site Recovery replicates VMs to a secondary region and recovery plans enable defining startup order, achieving the required RTO of 30 minutes.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Azure Backup with cross-region restore
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup provides backups, not continuous replication, and cross-region restore typically results in longer RTO (hours) and does not support startup order orchestration.
✗
Azure Migrate with replication
Why it's wrong here
Azure Migrate is a migration tool, not a disaster recovery tool; it does not provide ongoing replication and failover orchestration.
✗
Azure Automation runbooks
Why it's wrong here
Azure Automation runbooks can automate tasks but do not provide VM replication or failover capabilities.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Backup (which is for data protection and long-term retention) with Azure Site Recovery (which is for replication and failover), and overlook the orchestration requirement that only recovery plans can fulfill.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Site Recovery uses continuous replication at the VM disk level (block-level changes) to a secondary region, with RPO as low as 30 seconds. Recovery plans are built on Azure Automation runbooks and can include custom scripts, manual actions, and sequencing groups with pre- and post-steps, enabling precise control over application startup order. In a real-world scenario, a global e-commerce platform might use a recovery plan to first fail over the SQL Server Always On availability group, then the web tier, and finally update DNS records to minimize downtime.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-305 question in full detail.
Design business continuity solutions — This question tests Design business continuity solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Site Recovery with recovery plans — Azure Site Recovery (ASR) with recovery plans is the correct choice because it provides both VM replication to a secondary region and the ability to orchestrate the startup order of VMs. Recovery plans allow you to group VMs into tiers (e.g., database and web) and define dependencies, ensuring the database tier starts before the web tier. ASR meets the 30-minute recovery time objective (RTO) by enabling failover to the secondary region within that timeframe.
What should I do if I get this AZ-305 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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