The answer is Azure Site Recovery for Azure VMs, which is the correct choice because it provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery by continuously replicating Azure VMs to another region, enabling near-synchronous recovery point objectives and automated failover testing without disrupting production. This service orchestrates the full replication, failover, and failback lifecycle, making it the native solution for regional disaster recovery in Azure. On the AZ-900 exam, this concept tests your understanding of Azure’s high-availability and business continuity services, often appearing as a scenario where you must choose the service that replicates VMs across regions with minimal data loss. A common trap is confusing Azure Site Recovery with Azure Backup—remember that Site Recovery is for replication and failover, while Backup is for long-term data retention. Memory tip: think “Site Recovery = Site Switch” to recall that it moves your entire VM workload to a secondary region.
AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services Practice Question
This AZ-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe azure architecture and services. 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.
Which Azure service provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery for Azure VMs by replicating them to another region?
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 for Azure VMs
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for Azure VMs is the correct service because it provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery by orchestrating replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs from one region to another. It uses continuous replication with near-synchronous recovery point objectives (RPOs) and supports automated testing of failovers without impacting production workloads.
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 Backup
Why it's wrong here
Azure Backup takes periodic backups with longer RPO/RTO; Site Recovery provides continuous replication for DR.
✓
Azure Site Recovery for Azure VMs
Why this is correct
Site Recovery replicates Azure VMs to a secondary region for disaster recovery with minimal RPO.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)
Why it's wrong here
GRS replicates storage data; Site Recovery replicates entire VMs including compute configuration.
✗
Azure Zone-Redundant deployment
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundancy protects within a region; Site Recovery provides cross-region disaster recovery.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse Azure Backup (which is for long-term data retention and restore) with Azure Site Recovery (which is for continuous replication and orchestrated failover), or they mistakenly think Geo-Redundant Storage alone provides VM-level disaster recovery without the orchestration layer.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Site Recovery uses a replication appliance (the Mobility service) installed on each VM to capture disk writes and send them to a cache storage account in the source region, which then asynchronously replicates to a target region using Azure's backbone network. It supports multi-VM consistency groups to ensure crash-consistent or app-consistent recovery points for tiered applications, and the recovery plan feature allows scripting of custom steps (e.g., DNS updates) during failover. In a real-world scenario, an e-commerce platform might use ASR to failover a multi-tier application to a secondary region within minutes, with RPOs as low as 30 seconds for premium disks.
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 startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-900 question in full detail.
Describe Azure architecture and services — This question tests Describe Azure architecture and services — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Site Recovery for Azure VMs — Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for Azure VMs is the correct service because it provides low-cost, hot-standby disaster recovery by orchestrating replication, failover, and failback of Azure VMs from one region to another. It uses continuous replication with near-synchronous recovery point objectives (RPOs) and supports automated testing of failovers without impacting production workloads.
What should I do if I get this AZ-900 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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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