DP-300 Long-term retention (LTR) Practice Question
Your Azure SQL Managed Instance is configured with a long-term backup retention policy of 10 years. You need to reduce storage costs while still meeting a compliance requirement to retain monthly backups for 7 years. 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
✓
Configure a new long-term retention policy that retains monthly backups for 7 years.
Configuring a new long-term retention (LTR) policy that retains monthly backups for 7 years meets the compliance requirement while reducing storage costs compared to keeping weekly/daily backups for 10 years. LTR allows you to specify retention periods for weekly, monthly, and yearly backups; setting monthly backups to 7 years satisfies the requirement without extra cost. Option B is incorrect because disabling LTR entirely would lose the compliance capability. Option C is incorrect because point-in-time restore (PITR) retention is limited to 35 days, not 7 years. Option D is incorrect because migrating to Azure SQL Database does not inherently reduce costs and may introduce other issues.
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 a new long-term retention policy that retains monthly backups for 7 years.
Why this is correct
Correct. A new LTR policy with monthly backups for 7 years meets compliance and reduces costs by not retaining weekly/daily backups for the full 10 years.
- ✗
Disable long-term backup retention and rely solely on point-in-time restore backups.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Disabling LTR entirely removes the ability to retain backups for 7 years, failing compliance.
- ✗
Set the point-in-time restore retention period to 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. PITR retention is limited to 35 days, far short of 7 years.
- ✗
Migrate the database to Azure SQL Database and use geo-redundant storage.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Migrating to Azure SQL Database does not directly reduce storage costs and may not be necessary.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Overview of Azure Data Platform Options
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.
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.
About these practice questions
One of 906 original DP-300 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.