AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
You have an Azure SQL Database that stores sales data. You need to ensure that the database can recover to any point in time within the last 35 days. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse long-term retention (LTR) with point-in-time restore (PITR); candidates often think LTR provides point-in-time recovery, but LTR only retains full backups at fixed intervals and cannot restore to an arbitrary point within the retention window.
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 the point-in-time restore (PITR) retention period to 35 days
Point-in-time restore (PITR) for Azure SQL Database allows you to restore a database to any point within the configured retention period. The default retention is 7 days, but you can increase it up to 35 days. By setting the PITR retention period to 35 days, you meet the requirement to recover to any point in time within the last 35 days.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure the point-in-time restore (PITR) retention period to 35 days
Why this is correct
Point-in-time restore (PITR) is the native Azure SQL Database feature designed to recover a database to any precise point within a configurable retention window, with a maximum retention of 35 days. Automatic full, differential, and transaction log backups (taken every 5–10 minutes) let you restore to nearly any second in that window, making a 35-day PITR setting exactly what is needed to recover sales data lost or changed up to 35 days ago.
- ✗
Configure long-term retention (LTR) backups with a retention of 35 days
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention (LTR) backups are intended to archive full backups for years (up to 10 years) to satisfy compliance or regulatory requirements, not to provide granular point-in-time restores. LTR stores separate weekly/monthly/yearly full backups that can only restore to the exact time each backup was taken, so a 35-day LTR policy would still not let you roll back to an arbitrary minute within the last 35 days—that is PITR's job.
- ✗
Create a secondary database in the same region
Why it's wrong here
Creating a secondary database in the same region is an availability and read-scaling mechanism: it maintains a live, transactionally consistent replica of the primary database through continuous replication. A secondary does not contain historical snapshots or log replay from 35 days ago; it only reflects the current state of the primary, so it cannot restore data to a prior point in time and does not extend or replace the PITR retention period.
- ✗
Enable geo-replication with a readable secondary
Why it's wrong here
Geo-replication with a readable secondary provides a continuously updated copy of the database in another region, primarily for disaster recovery and to offload read workloads. Because the secondary is updated asynchronously and represents the database's near-current state, it cannot be rewound to an arbitrary timestamp within the last 35 days; point-in-time recovery is only accomplished by PITR, which uses backup metadata and log files independent of any secondary's current data.
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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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