AZ-305 Design business continuity solutions Practice Question
Your organization runs a web application on Azure App Service (Standard tier) in the West US region. The application uses Azure Blob Storage for static content and Azure SQL Database (Standard tier) for dynamic data. The compliance requirements specify a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 hour and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours. You need to design a disaster recovery solution that meets these requirements with minimal cost. Which option should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume active-active or active-passive multi-region deployments (like Traffic Manager or Front Door) are required for DR, but Azure's built-in geo-restore and geo-redundant storage features can meet moderate RPO/RTO targets at a fraction of the cost without running duplicate resources.
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 App Service backup to a geo-redundant storage account. Use geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage. Enable geo-restore for Azure SQL Database.
Meets the RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 4 hours at minimal cost by using App Service backup to geo-redundant storage (which can be restored within the RTO), geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage (providing automatic replication to a paired region), and geo-restore for Azure SQL Database (which restores from geo-replicated backups with an RPO of 1 hour and RTO typically under 4 hours). This approach avoids the cost and complexity of running active secondary instances.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deploy App Service in two regions with Azure Traffic Manager. Use Azure Site Recovery to replicate the App Service and SQL Database. Enable geo-redundant storage for Blob Storage.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Site Recovery cannot replicate App Service because it is a PaaS service, not an IaaS VM; likewise, Site Recovery does not manage SQL Database replication, which requires its own geo-restore or geo-replication capabilities. Merely deploying App Service in two regions with Traffic Manager only addresses routing and compute redundancy, leaving the SQL database and blob content without an automated, state-consistent failover mechanism. This option fails to provide a coherent DR strategy for the data tier and incorrectly assumes Site Recovery can cover PaaS resources.
- ✗
Deploy App Service in two regions with Azure Front Door. Use active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database. Enable read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) for Blob Storage.
Why it's wrong here
While Azure Front Door provides global load balancing and health probing, the combination with active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database is over-engineered for a 1-hour RPO; active geo-replication is intended for sub-second failover and introduces significant cost and write latency. RA-GRS for Blob Storage provides read access to the secondary region, but the requirement merely calls for replication, and the correct approach uses GRS for automatic asynchronous replication without the unnecessary read-access feature. This option does not address App Service content and configuration backup, leaving the application itself without a replicated source for recovery.
- ✗
Use Azure Traffic Manager to distribute traffic. Manually copy Blob Storage to a secondary region. Use Azure SQL Database export to bacpac and import in secondary region.
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Manager distributes traffic but does not automate data or application recovery; manually copying Blob Storage to a secondary region and using SQL Database bacpac export/import are slow, error-prone, and lack point-in-time consistency. Bacpac export requires a live database and its duration grows with database size, making it likely to exceed the RTO requirement, and the manual copy process has no built-in orchestration for failover. These manual steps do not satisfy a 1-hour RPO/RTO because they depend on human intervention and cannot guarantee a timely, consistent recovery.
- ✓
Configure App Service backup to a geo-redundant storage account. Use geo-redundant storage (GRS) for Blob Storage. Enable geo-restore for Azure SQL Database.
Why this is correct
Configuring App Service backup to a geo-redundant storage account ensures that application content, including code and configuration, is automatically replicated to the paired region, which is essential because App Service itself has no built-in geo-replication. GRS for Blob Storage automatically replicates blobs to the secondary region, providing a synchronous (or async, depending on service tier) copy that can be used for failover without manual intervention. Enabling geo-restore for Azure SQL Database uses the geo-redundant backups that Azure maintains automatically, offering an RPO of up to 1 hour, which aligns exactly with the stated requirement. Together these components give a fully automated, PaaS-native disaster recovery approach with no need for Site Recovery, Front Door, or manual data copies.
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 |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Container Storage
Key term
Azure Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery is a Microsoft Azure service that keeps your business applications and data running by automatically replicating them to a secondary location and failing over if the primary site goes down.
Key term
BIA and RPO RTO Design
Business Impact Analysis and the design of Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective define how much data loss and downtime a business can tolerate after an IT failure, guiding the architecture of backup and disaster recovery systems.
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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.