AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are features of Azure SQL Database that help ensure high availability? (Select two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse backup features (like LTR) or security features (like TDE) with high availability mechanisms, but only replication-based solutions (geo-replication and zone-redundancy) directly address availability during failures.
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
✓
Active geo-replication
Active geo-replication (Option A) creates readable secondary replicas of an Azure SQL Database in a paired Azure region, enabling manual or automatic failover to maintain availability during a regional outage. This feature ensures high availability by providing disaster recovery capabilities with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of up to 5 seconds and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 1 hour, depending on the failover group configuration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Active geo-replication
Why this is correct
Active geo-replication is a correct answer because it replicates your database continuously to a secondary server in a different Azure region, enabling disaster recovery across regional failures. It maintains a readable secondary replica that can be promoted through failover, and you can have up to four secondaries. This directly supports high availability by ensuring data and service remain accessible if the primary region goes down. Because it provides an alternative physical location for the database, it meets the question's criteria.
- ✗
Long-term retention (LTR) backups
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention (LTR) backups are not a high-availability feature because they simply store full database backups for up to 10 years to satisfy compliance or archival requirements. These backups are kept in the same region or a paired region, but they are static copies that require a manual restore operation to be used. LTR does not create live replicas, offer automatic failover, or contribute to continuous service availability. Thus, while it improves recoverability, it does not keep the database accessible during an outage, making it incorrect.
- ✗
Automatic tuning
Why it's wrong here
Automatic tuning relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning to continuously analyze query performance, and then it automatically creates or drops indexes, and adjusts query plan choices. It operates on the logical query execution side, not on the physical infrastructure, so it has no effect on data redundancy, replication, or failover mechanisms. This feature is primarily a performance optimization capability, and it does not provide any form of high availability. Therefore, it is an incorrect answer for a high availability question.
- ✓
Zone-redundant availability
Why this is correct
Zone-redundant availability is a correct option because it places three replicas of an Azure SQL database across multiple availability zones within the same Azure region, so a failure of one entire datacenter does not cause downtime. The service uses automatic failover to another zone replica, typically completing within seconds and with no data loss. This provides a high-availability guarantee within a single region, satisfying the question's requirement. Additionally, zone-redundant availability is available on both the Premium and Business Critical service tiers.
- ✗
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
Why it's wrong here
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is not a high-availability feature because it encrypts data and log files at rest using a symmetric encryption key, preventing unauthorized access to the physical files. TDE does not create any replicas, does not provide failover, and does not affect how the database is served to clients. Its purpose is data protection at the storage layer, not ensuring continuous operation or redundancy. So it is incorrect for this question about high availability.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Subscription and Management Group Design
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.
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.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-305 exam.