DP-300 Plan and implement data platform resources Practice Question
This DP-300 practice question tests your understanding of plan and implement data platform resources. 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.
You are designing a disaster recovery plan for an Azure SQL Database that uses the Business Critical tier. The database is deployed in the West US region. You need to ensure that if the entire West US region becomes unavailable, the database can be failed over to a secondary region with minimal data loss. What should you implement?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure active geo-replication to East US
Active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier provides a continuous, asynchronous replication stream to a secondary region, ensuring minimal data loss (typically a few seconds) during a regional outage. Unlike auto-failover groups, active geo-replication allows you to manually initiate a failover to the secondary region with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of up to 5 seconds, which meets the requirement for minimal data loss. The Business Critical tier also supports readable secondaries, but the key here is the replication mechanism that prioritizes low RPO over automatic failover.
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.
✓
Configure active geo-replication to East US
Why this is correct
Active geo-replication with synchronous commit provides zero data loss.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Configure an auto-failover group with a readable secondary in East US
Why it's wrong here
Auto-failover group alone does not guarantee zero data loss for Business Critical.
✗
Enable zone redundancy for the database
Why it's wrong here
Zone redundancy protects only within a single region.
✗
Configure geo-restore from the West US database
Why it's wrong here
Geo-restore is manual and has higher RPO.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse auto-failover groups (which offer automatic failover but with the same RPO as active geo-replication) with active geo-replication, but the question's emphasis on 'failed over' (manual action) and 'minimal data loss' points to active geo-replication as the more precise choice for controlling failover timing and achieving the lowest possible RPO.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Active geo-replication uses asynchronous log shipping with a configurable secondary type (readable or non-readable), and for Business Critical, the secondary is always readable; the RPO is typically under 5 seconds but can be higher under heavy write loads. Under the hood, Azure SQL Database streams transaction log records to the secondary region, and during a failover, the secondary applies all received log records before coming online, ensuring no data loss beyond the last committed transaction that was replicated. In a real-world scenario, if a regional outage occurs during a peak transaction period, active geo-replication might lose only the last few milliseconds of writes, whereas geo-restore could lose up to an hour of data.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this DP-300 question in full detail.
Plan and implement data platform resources — This question tests Plan and implement data platform resources — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure active geo-replication to East US — Active geo-replication for Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier provides a continuous, asynchronous replication stream to a secondary region, ensuring minimal data loss (typically a few seconds) during a regional outage. Unlike auto-failover groups, active geo-replication allows you to manually initiate a failover to the secondary region with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of up to 5 seconds, which meets the requirement for minimal data loss. The Business Critical tier also supports readable secondaries, but the key here is the replication mechanism that prioritizes low RPO over automatic failover.
What should I do if I get this DP-300 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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