DP-900 Practice Question: Identify considerations for relational data on Azure
A company runs an e-commerce platform on Azure SQL Database. The database handles many concurrent transactions (OLTP). The business team runs complex reporting queries on the same database during business hours, which slows down the transactional workload. The company wants to offload the reporting queries to a separate read-only copy of the database to avoid performance impact. Which Azure SQL Database feature should they enable?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Geo-replication with read scale-out because both provide readable secondaries, but Geo-replication is for disaster recovery and requires a separate database in a different region, while read scale-out is for performance isolation within the same region and uses the existing high-availability replicas.
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
✓
Read scale-out
Read scale-out (C) is the correct feature because it allows Azure SQL Database to offload read-only workloads, such as complex reporting queries, to a separate read-only replica. This is achieved by using the `ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly` connection string parameter, which routes queries to a secondary replica, thereby preventing performance impact on the primary transactional (OLTP) workload. This feature is specifically designed for scenarios where you need to isolate reporting from high-concurrency OLTP operations without requiring a separate database copy.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Hyperscale service tier
Why it's wrong here
Hyperscale is a service tier designed for massive scale through a distributed architecture of page servers and compute replicas, but it does not automatically create a dedicated read-only replica solely for offloading reporting workloads. While Hyperscale can have secondary compute nodes for high availability, enabling read scale-out is an explicit configuration separate from selecting the service tier itself. Choosing this option conflates the underlying scaling architecture with the specific feature that provides a read-only endpoint, which is why it is incorrect.
- ✗
Geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Geo-replication creates a readable secondary database in a different Azure region, primarily for disaster recovery and enabling cross-region failover. While this secondary can serve read-only traffic, it is not the intended solution for offloading read workloads in the same region as the primary because geographic separation introduces network latency and longer replication delays. The scenario focuses on improving OLTP performance within the same region, and geo-replication also requires manual redirection of read traffic rather than automatically routing queries to a read-only replica, making it an unsuitable answer.
- ✓
Read scale-out
Why this is correct
Read scale-out is the correct feature because it provisions a transparent, read-only replica on a separate compute resource within the same region as the primary database. When enabled on Premium, Business Critical, or Hyperscale service tiers, clients can use ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly in their connection string to have their queries automatically routed to that replica, offloading reporting workloads and reducing contention on the primary. This directly addresses the requirement of improving OLTP performance by separating read-only queries from the transactional workload, with low lag and minimal configuration overhead.
- ✗
Elastic query
Why it's wrong here
Elastic query is a feature that allows you to execute T-SQL queries spanning multiple databases in Azure SQL Database, treating remote tables as if they were local row sets. It does not create any read-only replicas or provide an alternate endpoint for offloading read workloads; instead, it merely extends query capability across databases. Therefore, it would not reduce load on the primary database for reporting queries and is not a mechanism for improving OLTP performance through read-only replication.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure SQL Services
Key term
OLTP
OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) is a data processing system designed to manage and record high volumes of real-time transactions, such as bank deposits or online purchases, quickly and reliably.
Key term
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) in Microsoft Azure, based on the SQL Server engine, that handles scaling, backups, patching, and high availability automatically.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DP-900 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-900 exam.