DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
You have an Azure SQL Managed Instance configured with a failover group for disaster recovery. The primary instance is in the East US region and the secondary is in West US. You need to perform a planned failover for maintenance with zero data loss. What is the correct sequence of steps?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is thinking that manual steps like taking the primary offline or removing the failover group are needed. Candidates might overcomplicate the process instead of using the built-in planned failover feature.
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 the Azure portal to perform a planned failover for the failover group.
For a planned failover with zero data loss in Azure SQL Managed Instance failover groups, the correct approach is to use the Azure portal (or PowerShell/CLI) to perform a planned failover. This ensures that all pending transactions are synchronized to the secondary before switching roles, preventing data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Take the primary instance offline, then failover.
Why it's wrong here
Taking the primary offline prevents the failover group from synchronising remaining transactions, so the secondary cannot be promoted without data loss. Planned failover requires the primary to stay online while roles are swapped. Offline primary suits forced failover after an outage, not zero-data-loss maintenance.
- ✓
Use the Azure portal to perform a planned failover for the failover group.
Why this is correct
A planned failover in the failover group completes synchronisation before switching roles, guaranteeing zero data loss — the stem's explicit requirement. Because the secondary is already synchronised via the failover group, the portal operation drains remaining transactions, promotes West US to primary, and demotes East US, satisfying the maintenance scenario without data loss.
- ✗
Scale down the primary to reduce cost, then failover.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling down the primary alters its compute tier, which is unrelated to failover group role switching and does not trigger replication catch-up or promotion of the West US secondary. Scaling suits cost reduction during idle periods, not planned failover; the stem demands zero data loss via the failover group's synchronised state.
- ✗
Remove the failover group, perform maintenance, then recreate the failover group.
Why it's wrong here
Removing the failover group severs the geo-replication link, so the secondary stops receiving transactions and any subsequent promotion loses data. Recreating it afterwards cannot recover those transactions. Failover groups exist precisely to enable zero-data-loss planned failover without dismantling replication.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Configuring Disaster Recovery for Azure SQL
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.