DP-300 Practice Question: Plan and configure a high availability and disaster recovery environment
Your company requires that all production databases in Azure SQL Database have an RPO of less than 5 seconds and an RTO of less than 1 minute during a regional outage. You need to recommend a high availability and disaster recovery solution. Which feature should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
DP-300 often tests the difference between zone redundancy (single-region HA) and geo-replication/failover groups (cross-region DR), and candidates frequently pick zone-redundant options for regional outage scenarios.
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
✓
Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication
Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication provide a group-level failover that can redirect all databases in a group to a secondary region with an RPO of about 5 seconds and an RTO of under a minute, meeting both requirements. Active geo-replication continuously replicates transactions to secondary databases, and the failover group automates the DNS and connection redirection so applications reconnect quickly.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Zone-redundant configuration (Hyperscale service tier)
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant configuration spreads replicas across availability zones within one region, so a regional outage still takes the database offline, failing the RTO. It is tempting because it delivers high availability with synchronous replication and low RPO, but it would be correct for zone-level failures, not regional disaster recovery.
- ✓
Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups with active geo-replication replicate asynchronously to a secondary region, giving an RPO of roughly 5 seconds and RTO typically under a minute. This satisfies both the sub-5-second RPO and sub-1-minute RTO constraints for a regional outage.
- ✗
Long-term retention (LTR) backups
Why it's wrong here
Long-term retention stores full backups for compliance and audit periods, with restore times far exceeding one minute and RPO governed by backup frequency, not seconds. It is tempting because it preserves data for years, but it would be correct for regulatory retention, not for rapid regional failover.
- ✗
Geo-restore from geo-redundant backups
Why it's wrong here
Geo-restore rebuilds a database from geo-redundant backups, typically taking hours and losing up to the backup interval, so it cannot meet a five-second RPO or one-minute RTO. It is tempting because it survives a regional outage, but it would be correct for cost-sensitive recovery where longer downtime is acceptable.
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.
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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.