DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
Your company has an Azure SQL Database that uses a failover group with a secondary in a different region. You need to ensure that read-only queries are directed to the secondary database to offload the primary. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
DP-300 often tests the misconception that you can just connect to the secondary server directly or use Traffic Manager — the correct approach is the failover group listener with ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly, which candidates overlook.
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
✓
Add ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly to the connection string and use the failover group listener.
To direct read-only queries to the secondary database in a failover group, you must use the failover group listener and add 'ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly' to the connection string. The listener routes read-write connections to the primary and read-only connections to the secondary, based on the ApplicationIntent parameter. This is the built-in read-scale-out mechanism for failover groups.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Add ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly to the connection string and use the failover group listener.
Why this is correct
ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in the connection string signals the intent to run read-only workloads; combined with the failover group listener, Azure SQL routes those sessions to the readable secondary. This offloads the primary while the listener abstracts endpoint changes during failover.
- ✗
Use a Traffic Manager profile to route read traffic.
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Manager load-balances at DNS level across endpoints; it cannot parse the ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly parameter in a connection string, so read-only queries are not routed to the secondary. It is tempting for regional traffic distribution, and would suit routing client traffic across globally distributed web endpoints.
- ✗
Enable read-scale for the database.
Why it's wrong here
Read-scale applies to Azure SQL Database single databases and elastic pools, not failover group secondaries, so it cannot offload reads to the geo-secondary. It is tempting because it does enable read-only replicas, and would suit a single database needing read-only workloads on its own replica.
- ✗
Configure a separate connection string pointing to the secondary server.
Why it's wrong here
A direct connection string to the secondary server bypasses the failover group listener, so it does not follow failover and breaks transparent redirection after a role switch. It is tempting for targeting a specific replica, and would suit scenarios without a failover group or listener.
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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.