DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
You manage an Azure SQL Database named SalesDB in the East US region. The database is in the General Purpose service tier and is business-critical. The application that uses SalesDB requires a recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour in the event of a regional outage. You need to configure a disaster recovery solution that meets these requirements with minimal administrative effort. What should you implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that active geo-replication provides automatic failover; it does not, and failover must be initiated manually, which can violate the RTO.
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
✓
Create an auto-failover group that includes SalesDB and a secondary server in West US.
An auto-failover group is the correct solution because it provides automatic failover for a group of databases, achieving an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO of about 1 hour. It also offers listener endpoints that remain constant, reducing application changes. Active geo-replication lacks automatic failover, zone redundancy only covers single-zone failures, and long-term retention restores are too slow and have a higher RPO.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create an auto-failover group that includes SalesDB and a secondary server in West US.
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups provide automatic failover for one or more databases, with an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO of about 1 hour. They also allow read-write and read-only listener endpoints, simplifying connection management. This meets the RPO and RTO requirements with minimal administrative effort because failover is automatic and configured at the group level.
- ✗
Enable zone redundancy for SalesDB and rely on the built-in high availability.
Why it's wrong here
Zone redundancy protects against a single datacenter failure within the same region, not a regional outage. It does not provide a secondary copy in another region, so a region-wide disaster would cause an outage exceeding the RTO. The RPO would also depend on the backup and replication within the region, which is not designed for cross-region recovery.
- ✗
Configure active geo-replication with a readable secondary in West US.
Why it's wrong here
Active geo-replication provides asynchronous replication with an RPO typically under 5 seconds, but failover is manual. It does not provide an automatic failover mechanism, so meeting a 1-hour RTO would require manual intervention, which may exceed the RTO. Additionally, it requires managing individual replicas, increasing administrative overhead compared to a failover group.
- ✗
Configure a long-term retention policy and restore the database to a new server in West US during an outage.
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention backups are stored in geo-redundant storage, but restoring from them can take hours and the RPO may be up to 24 hours for full backups. This does not meet the 5-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO. It also requires manual restore steps, increasing administrative effort and downtime.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Configuring Disaster Recovery for Azure SQL
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.
Key term
Azure SQL Database Backup
Azure SQL Database Backup is a fully managed, automated service that creates and stores copies of your SQL database data and transaction logs in Azure storage, enabling point-in-time recovery and long-term retention for data protection and business continuity.
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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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