AZ-305 Design data storage solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design data storage solutions. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Your company is migrating on-premises Oracle databases to Azure. The new solution must support a minimum of 99.99% availability SLA and allow for schema changes with minimal downtime. What should you recommend?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "minimum / minimize"
Why it matters: Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with zone redundancy
Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with zone redundancy provides a 99.995% SLA, exceeding the 99.99% requirement, and supports online schema changes with minimal downtime via features like online index operations and schema modification with minimal blocking. Zone redundancy replicates data across three Azure Availability Zones within a region, ensuring high availability and automatic failover without data loss.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 SQL Managed Instance Business Critical tier
Why it's wrong here
Azure SQL Managed Instance does not support zone-redundant deployment.
✗
Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL
Why it's wrong here
Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL is not a direct Oracle migration target.
✓
Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with zone redundancy
Why this is correct
Business Critical tier offers high availability and zone redundancy, meeting 99.99% SLA.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Azure Virtual Machines running Oracle Database with Availability Zones
Why it's wrong here
Azure VMs with Oracle DB have a maximum SLA of 99.95%.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume Azure SQL Managed Instance is equivalent to Azure SQL Database for high availability, but Managed Instance lacks zone redundancy, making it unable to meet the 99.99% SLA in a multi-zone failure scenario.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier uses a quorum-based commit model with three replicas in the same or different zones, ensuring no data loss during failover. Online schema changes leverage the database engine's ability to create a new schema version while the old version remains accessible, using metadata versioning and row-level versioning to avoid blocking reads and writes. In a real-world scenario, a financial application requiring continuous uptime for trading can apply an ALTER TABLE with ONLINE=ON to add a column without interrupting transactions.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-305 question in full detail.
Design data storage solutions — This question tests Design data storage solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with zone redundancy — Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier with zone redundancy provides a 99.995% SLA, exceeding the 99.99% requirement, and supports online schema changes with minimal downtime via features like online index operations and schema modification with minimal blocking. Zone redundancy replicates data across three Azure Availability Zones within a region, ensuring high availability and automatic failover without data loss.
What should I do if I get this AZ-305 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "minimum / minimize". Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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