Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
Your company has an Azure SQL Database that uses the Business Critical service tier with three replicas. You need to ensure that during a regional outage, the database can be failed over to a secondary region with minimal data loss. What should you configure?
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 with a secondary server in a different region.
Auto-failover groups with a secondary server in a different region provide cross-region disaster recovery with minimal data loss. Azure SQL Database supports configuring an auto-failover group that includes a primary and secondary server in different regions. When using the Business Critical service tier, synchronous replication is used within the primary region, but for cross-region failover, asynchronous replication is used, resulting in minimal data loss (typically a few seconds). Option A is wrong because zone-redundant replicas provide high availability within a single region, not cross-region DR. Option C is wrong because read scale-out allows offloading read workloads to a replica, but does not provide failover capability. Option D is wrong because geo-redundant backup storage and geo-restore can restore the database in a different region, but it involves longer recovery time (hours) and potential data loss, and is not a failover 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.
- ✗
Configure zone-redundant replicas in the same region.
Why it's wrong here
Zone redundancy protects within a region, not cross-region.
- ✓
Create an auto-failover group with a secondary server in a different region.
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups provide cross-region DR with minimal data loss.
- ✗
Enable read scale-out on the database.
Why it's wrong here
Read scale-out distributes read workloads, not DR.
- ✗
Use geo-redundant backup storage and perform geo-restore.
Why it's wrong here
Geo-restore has higher RPO and RTO.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Overview of Azure Data Platform Options
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.
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.