DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure high availability and disaster recovery
A company uses Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier for a large database. They need to perform a disaster recovery drill by failing over to a secondary region with minimal data loss. The secondary is in a paired region and is readable. Which approach should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Active Geo-Replication (unsupported on Hyperscale) with Auto-Failover Groups (the correct feature for Hyperscale), or assume named replicas can be used for cross-region failover when they are strictly intra-region read-only replicas.
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
✓
Use an Auto-Failover Group with the secondary in the paired region
Auto-Failover Groups with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale provide automated, orchestrated failover to a secondary region with minimal data loss by using synchronous replication for the log service. This meets the requirement for a disaster recovery drill with a readable secondary and minimal data loss, as the secondary is kept in sync and can be failed over manually or automatically.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Restore a geo-redundant backup to the secondary region
Why it's wrong here
Restoring a backup takes too long for a drill.
- ✗
Configure Active Geo-Replication to the secondary region
Why it's wrong here
Active Geo-Replication is not supported for Hyperscale.
- ✗
Create a named replica in the secondary region and fail over manually
Why it's wrong here
Named replicas are for read scale-out, not disaster recovery.
- ✓
Use an Auto-Failover Group with the secondary in the paired region
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups support Hyperscale and allow failover with minimal data loss.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Overview of Azure Data Platform Options
Key term
Azure SQL Performance Tuning
Azure SQL Performance Tuning is the process of optimizing the speed and efficiency of queries and database operations in Microsoft Azure SQL Database or SQL Managed Instance to reduce latency and improve throughput.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DP-300 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 DP-300 exam.