The answer is the use of geo-redundant storage (GRS) for cross-region disaster recovery, along with defining Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) as the three key considerations for high-availability storage design on Azure. RPO and RTO are fundamental because they directly drive your choice of replication strategy and failover architecture: RPO dictates the maximum acceptable data loss, pushing you toward synchronous replication or frequent backups, while RTO determines how quickly services must resume, influencing whether you deploy active-passive or active-active redundancy. On the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ-305 exam, this question tests your ability to map business continuity requirements to specific Azure storage redundancy tiers, such as GRS versus locally redundant storage (LRS). A common trap is confusing high availability (which focuses on regional resilience) with disaster recovery (which requires cross-region replication like GRS). Remember the mnemonic “RPO for data, RTO for time” to keep these metrics straight when evaluating storage design for high-availability applications.
AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design data storage solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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.
Which THREE of the following are considerations when designing a storage solution for a high-availability application on Azure?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Option A is correct because RPO and RTO are fundamental design considerations for any high-availability application. RPO defines the maximum acceptable data loss (measured in time), which directly influences the choice of backup frequency and replication type (e.g., synchronous vs. asynchronous). RTO defines the maximum acceptable downtime, which dictates the failover mechanism and infrastructure redundancy (e.g., active-passive vs. active-active). Both metrics must be explicitly defined before selecting a storage redundancy tier or disaster recovery strategy.
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.
✓
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Why this is correct
These metrics guide the replication and failover design.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Use of zone-redundant storage (ZRS) for within-region resilience
Why this is correct
ZRS protects against a zone failure.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Data encryption at rest using Azure Storage Service Encryption
Why it's wrong here
Encryption is a security feature, not high-availability.
✗
Data striping with RAID 0 for performance
Why it's wrong here
Azure storage handles data redundancy internally; RAID is not used.
✓
Use of geo-redundant storage (GRS) for cross-region disaster recovery
Why this is correct
GRS protects against a regional outage.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is confusing security features (encryption at rest) or performance optimizations (RAID 0) with high-availability design requirements, leading candidates to select options that are valid in other contexts but irrelevant to uptime and disaster recovery.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Azure Storage replicates data synchronously within a region for ZRS (three availability zones) and asynchronously to a paired region for GRS. The RPO for GRS is typically 15 minutes due to asynchronous replication lag, while ZRS offers an RPO of zero within the region. In a real-world scenario, a financial trading application might require an RPO of seconds and an RTO of minutes, forcing the use of ZRS with application-level synchronous replication rather than GRS.
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 data storage solutions — This question tests Design data storage solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) — Option A is correct because RPO and RTO are fundamental design considerations for any high-availability application. RPO defines the maximum acceptable data loss (measured in time), which directly influences the choice of backup frequency and replication type (e.g., synchronous vs. asynchronous). RTO defines the maximum acceptable downtime, which dictates the failover mechanism and infrastructure redundancy (e.g., active-passive vs. active-active). Both metrics must be explicitly defined before selecting a storage redundancy tier or disaster recovery strategy.
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.
About these practice questions
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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. Refer to the exhibit. An organization deployed this ARM template to create a storage account. After deployment, they try to enable geo-redundant storage (GRS) but receive an error. What is the most likely reason?
medium
A.The supportsHttpsTrafficOnly property must be set to false.
B.The storage account name is not globally unique.
✓ D.The storage account uses Standard_LRS, which does not support GRS.
Why D: Option D is correct because Standard_LRS (Locally Redundant Storage) does not support upgrading to GRS (Geo-Redundant Storage) directly. To enable GRS, the storage account must be created with a redundancy tier that supports geo-replication, such as Standard_GRS or Standard_RAGRS. The error occurs because the ARM template specifies Standard_LRS, which only replicates data within a single datacenter and cannot be converted to a geo-redundant tier after deployment.
Variation 2. Refer to the exhibit. An organization deploys this ARM template to create a storage account. They need to ensure that data is replicated synchronously across two Azure regions. Does this template meet the requirement?
medium
A.No, the template uses RA-GRS
B.Yes, GRS provides synchronous replication
C.No, the template uses LRS
✓ D.No, GRS provides asynchronous replication
Why D: The template uses GRS (Geo-Redundant Storage), which replicates data asynchronously from the primary region to the secondary region. Because the replication is asynchronous, there is a potential for data loss if a regional disaster occurs before the secondary region is fully updated. The requirement specifies synchronous replication across two Azure regions, which is only provided by Azure Storage’s geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS) with read-access (RA-GZRS) or by using Azure Files with synchronous replication via Azure File Sync or a third-party solution. Therefore, GRS does not meet the synchronous requirement.
Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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