Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment →hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
You manage an Azure SQL Managed Instance in the East US region. To meet a 5-second RPO, you configure a failover group with a secondary in West US. During a planned maintenance, the primary becomes unavailable. The failover group is set to automatic with a grace period of 1 hour. You need to minimize downtime. What should you do?
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
✓
Initiate a manual forced failover to the secondary.
Initiating a manual forced failover immediately fails over to the secondary, minimizing downtime. Option A is incorrect because dropping and recreating the failover group introduces additional steps and downtime, and is unnecessary since a manual failover can be performed directly. Option B is incorrect because waiting for automatic failover would take up to 1 hour due to the grace period, causing longer downtime. Option C is incorrect because altering the grace period to 0 and then waiting for automatic failover is slower than performing a manual forced failover, which provides the fastest recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Drop the failover group and create a new one with immediate failover.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Dropping the failover group removes replication, and creating a new one requires re-seeding data, which is time-consuming and not immediate.
- ✗
Wait for the automatic failover to occur after the grace period.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Waiting for automatic failover would take up to the 1-hour grace period, causing unnecessary downtime.
- ✗
Alter the failover group grace period to 0 and wait for automatic failover.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Altering the grace period to 0 does not trigger an immediate failover; you would still need to wait for the next health check or perform a manual failover.
- ✓
Initiate a manual forced failover to the secondary.
Why this is correct
Correct. A manual forced failover is immediate and reduces downtime without waiting for the grace period.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Overview of Azure Data Platform Options
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.