AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question
You are designing a storage solution for a healthcare application that stores patient records. The solution must meet the following requirements: - Support for both structured and unstructured data. - Provide low-latency access to frequently accessed data. - Automatically move cold data to a lower-cost tier. - Encrypt data at rest using customer-managed keys. Which combination of Azure services should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume Azure SQL Database is the only option for structured data, overlooking Cosmos DB's superior low-latency and global distribution capabilities, and they forget that Blob Storage's lifecycle management is the key to automated cold data tiering.
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 Blob Storage for unstructured data and Azure Cosmos DB for structured data
Azure Cosmos DB provides low-latency access to structured data with multi-region writes and automatic indexing, while Azure Blob Storage handles unstructured data like medical images. Both services support encryption at rest with customer-managed keys via Azure Key Vault, and Blob Storage offers lifecycle management policies to automatically move cold data to lower-cost tiers like Cool or Archive.
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 Table Storage for structured data and Azure Blob Storage for unstructured data
Why it's wrong here
While Blob Storage adequately handles unstructured data with lifecycle management and tiering, Azure Table Storage lacks automatic tiering capabilities, meaning structured data cannot be cost-effectively moved between hot and cool tiers without custom solutions. Additionally, Table Storage offers limited query flexibility and secondary indexes compared to other Azure data services, making it a suboptimal fit for healthcare structured data that may require complex queries. This combination fails to fully leverage Azure's built-in cost management features for structured data.
- ✗
Azure Files for unstructured data and Azure SQL Database for structured data
Why it's wrong here
Azure Files lacks lifecycle management for automatic tiering, so unstructured data would remain on hot storage and increase costs; it is designed for file shares, not large-scale analytical data, and has slower access latency than Blob Storage for similar media. Although Azure SQL Database offers robust relational capabilities, it does not support automatic tiering to cold storage for structured healthcare data, requiring manual scaling or custom archiving. This pairing addresses the data types but fails to deliver the cost-optimizing lifecycle policies that the healthcare solution needs.
- ✓
Azure Blob Storage for unstructured data and Azure Cosmos DB for structured data
Why this is correct
Azure Blob Storage provides multiple access tiers and lifecycle management policies, enabling automated movement of unstructured data (e.g., medical images, text reports) to cool or archive storage based on age, significantly reducing costs. Azure Cosmos DB offers single-digit millisecond read/write latency for structured healthcare data, with guaranteed throughput and global distribution, which is essential for electronic health records and real-time patient monitoring. Both services support customer-managed keys (CMK) for encryption at rest, meeting the healthcare industry's strict compliance and security requirements.
- ✗
Azure Blob Storage for unstructured data and Azure SQL Database for structured data
Why it's wrong here
While Blob Storage offers lifecycle tiering for unstructured data, Azure SQL Database does not support automatic tiering to cold storage—it lacks built-in lifecycle policies to move older structured data to a lower-cost tier without custom scripting or offloading data to Blob Storage. For a healthcare application, structured data volumes can grow quickly, and without automatic tiering, you will incur higher storage costs on premium SQL storage. Azure SQL Database also has limited elastic scaling for mixed workloads compared with a purpose-built NoSQL service, making Cosmos DB a better fit for low-latency structured data.
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 |
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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.