DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure high availability and disaster recovery
You manage an Azure SQL Database in the Business Critical service tier. The database has a zone-redundant configuration. During a planned maintenance event, you need to ensure that the database remains online with no data loss and minimal downtime. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse cross-region disaster recovery features with local high availability during maintenance.
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
✓
Ensure the database is configured with zone redundancy and rely on the built-in high availability architecture.
Zone redundancy in the Business Critical tier replicates both compute and storage across availability zones, enabling automatic failover during planned maintenance with no data loss and minimal downtime. Cross-region solutions like failover groups or geo-replication address disaster recovery, not local high availability. Backup and restore is not a high availability mechanism.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable auto-failover groups with a secondary database in a different region.
Why it's wrong here
Auto-failover groups provide cross-region disaster recovery, not local high availability during planned maintenance within the same region. They do not prevent downtime during maintenance events in the primary region. Zone redundancy already handles local availability, so adding a failover group is unnecessary and does not address the specific need for zero data loss and minimal downtime during maintenance.
- ✗
Configure active geo-replication to a secondary database in the same region.
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication is designed for cross-region disaster recovery and read-scale out, not for automatic local high availability. It does not provide automatic failover during maintenance, and replicas in the same region do not protect against zone-level failures. This option would not meet the requirement for minimal downtime and no data loss during a planned maintenance event.
- ✓
Ensure the database is configured with zone redundancy and rely on the built-in high availability architecture.
Why this is correct
In the Business Critical tier, zone redundancy replicates compute and storage across multiple availability zones. During planned maintenance, Azure performs a rolling upgrade, and the built-in high availability architecture automatically fails over to a healthy replica with no data loss and minimal downtime. This is the correct configuration to meet the stated requirements.
- ✗
Create a long-term retention policy and restore the database from backup after maintenance.
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention is for compliance and archival, not for high availability. Restoring from backup would cause significant downtime and potential data loss, which contradicts the requirement. This approach does not provide continuous availability during maintenance and is not a high availability solution.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Implementing High Availability for Azure SQL Databases
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 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
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