AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question

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 Stack Edge

  Why it's wrong here

  Azure Stack Edge is a physical hardware appliance from Microsoft designed for edge computing scenarios, offering local compute and storage that can be connected to Azure for data transfer and AI inference. It is not a cloud-resident file storage service, nor does it provide a general-purpose SMB file share endpoint for migrating large numbers of files to Azure. Rather than serving as scalable cloud file storage, its primary role is to preprocess and synchronize data at the edge before it is sent to services like Azure Blob or Azure Files.

• ✗

  Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0

  Why it's wrong here

  Azure Blob Storage with NFS 3.0 enables Linux-based clients to access object data via the NFS protocol, but it does not support SMB, which is the standard protocol for Windows-based file shares and many enterprise applications. While blob storage can store enormous quantities of objects, it is architecturally an object store, not a file share service, so features like file locking, hierarchical namespace (unless Data Lake Storage is enabled), and Windows AD integration are either absent or not equivalent to a full SMB file service. For migrating on-premises SMB file shares, Azure Files is the appropriate cloud-native offering.

• ✓

  Azure Files

  Why this is correct

  Azure Files provides fully managed, cloud-native SMB (and NFS) file shares that are accessible over the internet or via private endpoints, with integration into Microsoft Entra ID for identity-based access control. It can scale to store millions of files across standard and premium tiers, making it a straightforward and cost-effective choice for migrating on-premises file servers without rearchitecting applications. Performance is suitable for most workloads, and the service handles patching, availability, and durability automatically, so it requires the least operational overhead among the options.

• ✓

  Azure NetApp Files

  Why this is correct

  Azure NetApp Files is a high-performance, enterprise-grade file service built on NetApp technology that supports both SMB and NFS protocols and delivers extremely consistent, low-latency performance even with millions of files due to its advanced caching and block-level architecture. It is a fully managed service, but it is positioned for demanding enterprise workloads such as high-performance computing, VDI, or SAP Hana, and comes at a significantly higher cost and more complex capacity management compared to Azure Files. While it is technically a correct choice for large-scale SMB file migration, it is often considered overkill when the primary requirement is simply scalable cloud file storage.

• ✗

  Azure Disk Storage

  Why it's wrong here

  Azure Disk Storage provides block-level storage volumes that are attached to a single virtual machine (or used in shared clusters with specific configurations), but it does not expose an SMB file share protocol or allow concurrent access from multiple unrelated clients over the network. Disks are bound to a VM's lifecycle and are intended for IaaS workloads needing persistent local storage, not for shared file migration scenarios. To migrate and serve a large number of files with SMB-based access, you would use a shared file service such as Azure Files rather than disk storage.

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