DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure high availability and disaster recovery
A company uses Azure SQL Managed Instance in the East US region. They need to configure a disaster recovery strategy that provides a readable secondary in a paired region and supports manual failover. The solution must minimize administrative overhead and use built-in Azure capabilities. What should they implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that managed instance backups or transactional replication provide a continuously readable secondary with failover capabilities, when only auto-failover groups offer that built-in functionality.
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 an auto-failover group with a managed instance in the paired region.
Auto-failover groups are the built-in DR feature for Azure SQL Managed Instance that provide cross-region replication, a readable secondary, and a listener endpoint. They support both manual and automatic failover and require minimal administration compared to custom replication or backup/restore. This makes them the correct choice for the stated requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance built-in backups and restore to the paired region during an outage.
Why it's wrong here
Built-in backups are geo-redundant by default, but restoring to the paired region is a manual process that can take hours and does not provide a continuously readable secondary. This approach does not meet the requirement for a readable secondary and manual failover with minimal overhead. It is a backup and restore strategy, not a DR replication strategy.
- ✗
Create a geo-secondary by using transactional replication to a managed instance in the paired region.
Why it's wrong here
Transactional replication can replicate data to a secondary, but it is not a built-in DR feature for managed instances and requires significant setup and maintenance. It does not provide automatic failover or a listener endpoint, and the secondary may not be readable for all workloads. This option increases administrative overhead rather than minimizing it.
- ✓
Configure an auto-failover group with a managed instance in the paired region.
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups for Azure SQL Managed Instance support a readable secondary in a paired region and allow manual or automatic failover. They provide a listener endpoint and built-in replication, minimizing administrative overhead. This is the native DR feature for managed instances and meets the requirement for a readable secondary and manual failover capability.
- ✗
Deploy a SQL Server Always On availability group on Azure VMs in the paired region and replicate from the managed instance.
Why it's wrong here
You cannot add an Azure SQL Managed Instance as a replica to an Always On availability group hosted on Azure VMs. Managed instances are a platform-as-a-service offering and do not support distributed availability groups with IaaS SQL Server. This option is not technically feasible and would require migrating off managed instance.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Deploying and Configuring Azure SQL Managed Instance
Key term
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure SQL Managed Instance is a fully managed cloud database service that gives you nearly all the features of Microsoft SQL Server on your own server, without you having to manage the hardware or operating system.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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.