AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
You are a Solutions Architect for an e-commerce company that runs its online store on Azure. The application consists of: - Azure App Service (Windows) hosting the web frontend - Azure SQL Database (General Purpose, serverless) for product catalog and orders - Azure Cache for Redis for session state - Azure Blob Storage for product images The application is deployed in the East US region. The company wants to implement a disaster recovery (DR) plan that can fail over to a secondary region (West US) with minimal data loss. The requirements are: - RPO: 5 minutes for the database - RTO: 30 minutes for the entire application - The solution must be cost-effective and not require manual intervention during failover. Which of the following is the BEST course of action to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Azure SQL Database geo-replication (manual failover) with auto-failover groups (automatic failover), leading them to select Option B which fails the 'no manual intervention' requirement.
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
✓
Configure Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with auto-failover group, deploy App Service in West US with a separate App Service plan, enable geo-replication for Cache for Redis, and use RA-GRS for Blob Storage. Use Azure Traffic Manager with priority routing for the web app.
It meets all requirements: Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with auto-failover groups provides an RPO of 5 seconds (well within the 5-minute requirement) and automated failover without manual intervention. Deploying App Service in West US with a separate App Service plan ensures capacity for failover, and geo-replication for Cache for Redis preserves session state to avoid data loss. RA-GRS for Blob Storage provides read access in the secondary region, and Azure Traffic Manager with priority routing enables automatic failover of the web frontend within the 30-minute RTO.
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 Backup for the SQL database with 5-minute backup frequency, deploy App Service in West US with staging slots, and use Azure Traffic Manager with priority routing.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VMs cannot provide a 5-minute recovery point objective (RPO) because its minimum backup frequency is 15 minutes, and even that only applies to IaaS-based SQL Server, not Azure SQL Database. Staging slots are designed for deployment testing and swapping, not for disaster recovery, so they do not contribute to regional failover. Traffic Manager priority routing can redirect web traffic, but without a database replication strategy that meets the RPO, the overall solution fails to meet the recovery requirements.
- ✗
Configure Azure SQL Database geo-replication with readable secondary, deploy App Service in West US with deployment slots, and use Azure Front Door with health probes. Cache for Redis is not critical and can be rebuilt.
Why it's wrong here
Configuring Azure SQL Database geo-replication with a readable secondary does not enable automatic failover; you must manually promote the secondary, which significantly increases recovery time objective (RTO). Azure Front Door health probes only monitor the availability of your web endpoints and do not orchestrate database failover, so they cannot satisfy the required RTO for the data layer. Additionally, dismissing Cache for Redis as non-critical ignores that the cache often holds session state or shopping cart data that cannot be rebuilt without affecting customers, and the lack of Redis geo-replication may result in unacceptable data loss.
- ✓
Configure Azure SQL Database active geo-replication with auto-failover group, deploy App Service in West US with a separate App Service plan, enable geo-replication for Cache for Redis, and use RA-GRS for Blob Storage. Use Azure Traffic Manager with priority routing for the web app.
Why this is correct
Active geo-replication with an auto-failover group meets the RPO requirement by continuously replicating changes to a secondary database with a typical RPO of 5 seconds and automating failover on regional outage, which keeps RTO low. A separate App Service plan in West US, combined with Azure Traffic Manager priority routing, ensures that the web tier can fail over to the secondary region automatically when the primary is unhealthy. Enabling geo-replication for Cache for Redis preserves session or cached data across regions, while RA-GRS for Blob Storage provides a secondary read-only copy of static assets such as images and product catalogs, which can tolerate a slightly higher RPO without affecting transactional integrity.
- ✗
Deploy the entire application in an active-active configuration using Azure Front Door, with Azure SQL Database using failover groups and manual failover. Use Azure Backup for the database with 1-hour backup frequency.
Why it's wrong here
This option incorrectly relies on Azure Backup, which is a snapshot-based backup service, not a replication or failover solution; even at 1-hour backup frequency, the RPO would be up to 60 minutes, far exceeding the required 5-minute RPO. Manual failover of an Azure SQL failover group requires human intervention, which likely pushes the RTO beyond any tolerable threshold during an outage. While an active-active configuration with Azure Front Door is a valid approach for routing web traffic, it does not compensate for the fact that the database layer lacks automated failover and the data recovery point is at best an hour behind the last committed transaction.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Front Door vs Traffic Manager
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.