AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
You are a cloud architect at a healthcare company. They have an existing application running on Azure VMs in a single region. The application uses SQL Server on a VM for its database. The company is migrating to Azure SQL Managed Instance for better manageability and compliance. The database is 2 TB and requires point-in-time restore (PITR) capability with a retention period of 35 days. The workload is critical with an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 2 hours. The company wants to minimize costs while meeting these requirements. Which of the following should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse PITR retention with long-term retention (LTR) or assume geo-replication is required for any critical workload, but the question's RPO/RTO and single-region focus make automated backups with LRS the most cost-effective choice.
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
✓
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance with automated backups configured for 35-day retention and a backup storage redundancy of Locally Redundant Storage (LRS)
Azure SQL Managed Instance's automated backups with a 35-day retention period and LRS storage meet the PITR requirement while minimizing cost. LRS is the cheapest redundancy option and sufficient for PITR within a single region, as the RPO of 5 minutes is satisfied by the default transaction log backup frequency (every 5-10 minutes). The RTO of 2 hours is achievable by restoring from these backups, and no cross-region replication is needed since the workload is single-region.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance with automated backups configured for 35-day retention and a backup storage redundancy of Locally Redundant Storage (LRS)
Why this is correct
Automated backups in Azure SQL Managed Instance are enabled by default and retain full, differential, and transaction log backups to support point-in-time restore (PITR) within the configured retention period. You can set the retention to exactly 35 days, the maximum for Managed Instance, and choose Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) to minimize backup storage cost while still meeting the recovery requirement. LRS is cost-effective because it replicates only within the same data center, which is sufficient for PITR when no geo-redundancy requirement exists.
- ✗
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance with active geo-replication to a secondary region
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication continuously replicates data to a readable secondary database in another region and enables manual failover for disaster recovery, but it does not produce restore points or preserve transaction log backups for PITR. PITR is achieved exclusively through automated backups, not replication. Adding geo-replication would incur additional compute and storage costs for the secondary instance, and it also adds management complexity—none of which addresses a 35-day point-in-time restore requirement.
- ✗
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance with long-term retention (LTR) backups
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention (LTR) in Azure SQL Managed Instance preserves full database backups for up to 10 years using separate weekly, monthly, or yearly policies, but these are full backups only; LTR does not retain transaction log backups beyond the PITR retention limit. PITR within 35 days relies on automated transaction log backups that are only kept during the configurable automated backup retention (1–35 days). Thus, LTR is useful for compliance/archival beyond 35 days, but it cannot extend the PITR window or replace the automated backup retention setting.
- ✗
Use Azure SQL Database with the Hyperscale service tier
Why it's wrong here
Azure SQL Database provides its own 35-day point-in-time restore, and the Hyperscale service tier uses snapshot-based backups, but it is a single database service, not an Azure SQL Managed Instance. Hyperscale does not support instance-scoped features such as SQL Server Agent jobs, cross-database queries, linked servers, or the same certificate/service principal integration that Managed Instance offers. If the environment requires Managed Instance, then the Hyperscale tier is not a compatible substitute; its backup architecture and storage redundancy options differ from Managed Instance.
Go deeper
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Azure Container Storage
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
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