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 runs a mission-critical Azure SQL Database in the East US region. To meet an RPO of 5 seconds and an RTO of 30 minutes in the event of a regional outage, which deployment option should you choose?
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
✓
Failover groups with auto-failover policy
Failover groups with auto-failover policy provide automatic failover with an RPO of 5 seconds (default) and RTO of 30 minutes. Active geo-replication requires manual failover, which does not meet the RTO. Zone-redundant configuration only protects within a region. Backup restore has much higher RPO/RTO.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Failover groups with auto-failover policy
Why this is correct
Failover groups maintain a readable secondary and automatically fail over when primary becomes unavailable, meeting RPO of 5 seconds and RTO of 30 minutes.
- ✗
Zone-redundant configuration
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant configuration only protects within a region, not against regional outage.
- ✗
Point-in-time restore
Why it's wrong here
Restoring from backups takes hours and cannot meet the RPO/RTO requirements.
- ✗
Active geo-replication with manual failover
Why it's wrong here
Manual failover requires human intervention, which cannot guarantee 30-minute RTO.
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.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DP-300
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Your company has an Azure SQL Database in the East US region. You need to configure a disaster recovery solution that provides a readable secondary in the West US region with an RPO of 5 seconds. The solution must support automatic failover from the application. What should you configure?
easy- A.Enable zone-redundant replicas in the same region.
- B.Enable geo-redundant backup storage and perform geo-restore.
- C.Configure active geo-replication to a secondary server in West US.
- ✓ D.Create an auto-failover group with a secondary server in West US using synchronous replication.
Why D: Auto-failover groups with a secondary server in another region using synchronous replication can achieve an RPO of 5 seconds and support automatic failover from the application. Option A is wrong because zone-redundant replicas are in the same region and do not provide cross-region DR. Option B is wrong because geo-redundant backup storage and geo-restore are not for automatic failover and have a higher RPO. Option C is wrong because although active geo-replication provides a readable secondary, it does not support automatic failover; a group is needed.
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.