AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services Practice Question
Which Azure service replicates on-premises virtual machines and physical servers to Azure for disaster recovery?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Azure Backup (point-in-time backups) with Azure Site Recovery (continuous replication and failover), as both involve data protection but serve fundamentally different purposes in the Azure resilience portfolio.
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 Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is the correct service because it is specifically designed for disaster recovery (DR) by orchestrating replication, failover, and failback of on-premises virtual machines and physical servers to Azure. It uses continuous replication to maintain data consistency and supports planned/unplanned failover, ensuring business continuity during outages.
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 Backup
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup is a service for creating periodic snapshots of Azure VMs, on-premises machines, and workloads, which are stored in a Recovery Services vault for point-in-time restore. Its primary use is protecting against corruption, accidental deletion, or ransomware, but it does not replicate data continuously or provide automated failover. To recover using a backup, you must manually trigger a restore, which results in significant downtime and data loss (up to the backup frequency), whereas Site Recovery provides near-real-time replication and an automated, orchestrated failover process.
- ✓
Azure Site Recovery
Why this is correct
Azure Site Recovery is the Azure service specifically designed for disaster recovery, enabling continuous replication of on-premises VMs and physical servers to Azure or between Azure regions. It replicates data asynchronously to a secondary location, and you can define recovery plans that orchestrates failover with the desired order of application startup and network configuration. Site Recovery also supports automated failover and failback, and allows non-disruptive DR drills to validate readiness, keeping RTO and RPO within business limits.
- ✗
Azure Migrate
Why it's wrong here
Azure Migrate is a centralized hub for assessing and migrating on-premises workloads to Azure, including server discovery, dependency mapping, and actual migration of VMs and databases. However, it executes a one-time permanent move to Azure, not the continuous replication or scheduled failover that disaster recovery demands. After migration, Azure Migrate does not maintain ongoing replication, so it cannot recover workloads to a secondary site during an outage.
- ✗
Azure Archive Storage
Why it's wrong here
Azure Archive Storage is a cold storage tier within Azure Blob Storage designed for long-term retention of infrequently accessed data, such as compliance archives or old logs. It does not replicate virtual machines continuously, nor does it provide any automated failover or recovery orchestration, making it unsuitable for active disaster recovery scenarios. Restoring from Archive Storage also incurs high latency and costs, which would violate DR downtime objectives.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-900 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-900 exam.