AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question
You are designing a backup strategy for Azure VMs running critical business applications. The solution must support application-consistent backups and allow for restoration to a different region. Which Azure service and configuration should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Azure Site Recovery (disaster recovery) with Azure Backup (backup), and assuming that any snapshot or replication mechanism automatically provides application consistency and point-in-time restore capabilities.
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
✓
Azure Backup with application-consistent backup policy and geo-redundant storage
Azure Backup with an application-consistent backup policy uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on Windows or pre/post-scripts on Linux to ensure that all in-memory data and pending I/O operations are flushed before the snapshot is taken. By configuring the Backup vault with geo-redundant storage (GRS), the backup data is replicated to a paired region, enabling restoration to a different region in the event of a regional disaster.
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 Backup with application-consistent backup policy and geo-redundant storage
Why this is correct
Azure Backup is the correct choice because it leverages the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to capture application-consistent recovery points, ensuring that databases and applications are in a consistent state before the backup is taken. Geo-redundant storage (GRS) in the Recovery Services vault replicates backup data to a paired Azure region, enabling geo-restore if the primary region is lost. Azure Backup also offers 99.9% RPO compliance, encrypted backups, and long-term retention policies, making it a comprehensive, managed backup solution for critical VMs.
- ✗
Azure Disk Encryption with Azure Backup
Why it's wrong here
Azure Disk Encryption is a security feature that encrypts OS and data disks using BitLocker (Windows) or DM-Crypt (Linux), protecting data at rest from unauthorized access. It does not create any recovery points or copies of the VM, so it cannot restore data after accidental deletion, corruption, or region-wide failure. While Azure Backup can protect encrypted VMs, disk encryption alone provides zero backup or restore capability.
- ✗
Azure Snapshot with cross-region copy
Why it's wrong here
Azure Snapshot with cross-region copy provides crash-consistent point-in-time snapshots of managed disks, meaning they capture the raw disk state without coordinating with applications via VSS. This can result in incomplete writes and application-inconsistent data, making it unsafe for databases like SQL Server or SAP. Additionally, copying snapshots to another region is a manual or scripted process, lacks automated retention management, and does not provide the same recovery point granularity or geo-redundancy as Azure Backup.
- ✗
Azure Site Recovery with replication to secondary region
Why it's wrong here
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) continuously replicates VM disks to a secondary region for disaster recovery, ensuring business continuity through failover, but it is not a backup solution. ASR maintains a replication log with limited recovery points (typically up to 24 hours) and does not support long-term retention or file-level granular restore. Its purpose is to minimize RPO/RTO during regional outages, not to recover from data corruption, accidental deletion, or ransomware attacks where the primary and replicated copies may both be affected.
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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.