Match each Azure storage redundancy option to its description.
Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.
Locally redundant storage within a single datacenter
Zone-redundant storage across availability zones
Geo-redundant storage with cross-region replication
Read-access geo-redundant storage
Geo-zone-redundant storage
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
LRS: Data is replicated three times within a single datacenter in the primary region.
Azure storage redundancy options differ in durability and availability. LRS is cost-effective, ZRS protects against zone failures, GRS adds geo-replication, and RA-GRS enables read access to the secondary region.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
LRS: Data is replicated three times within a single datacenter in the primary region.
Why this is correct
LRS provides 11 nines durability by maintaining three synchronous copies on separate fault domains and upgrade domains within one datacenter. It protects against drive failures, node failures, and rack failures, but not against a full datacenter outage. Often chosen for cost-sensitive workloads or where application-level replication provides additional durability.
ZRS: Data is replicated synchronously across three Azure availability zones in the primary region.
Why this is correct
ZRS places copies in three distinct availability zones, each with independent power, cooling, and networking. Because writes are committed synchronously across zones, data remains available if an entire datacenter or zone fails, without requiring failover. However, ZRS doesn't protect against a region-wide disaster, so geo-redundancy may still be needed.
GRS: Data is replicated three times in the primary region asynchronously to a secondary region.
Why this is correct
GRS combines LRS in the primary and LRS in the secondary, with asynchronous geo-replication between regions. Because replication is asynchronous, data in the secondary may lag behind the primary; if a region-level disaster occurs, you could lose recent writes (typically a few minutes or less). It doesn't provide read access to the secondary copy unless failover happens.
RA-GRS: Provides read access to data in the secondary region in addition to GRS.
Why this is correct
RA-GRS extends GRS by allowing applications to read from the secondary region at any time, even before Microsoft initiates a failover. The secondary copy is updated asynchronously, so reads may be stale if the primary has had recent writes. This option supports higher read availability and geographic load balancing, but failover still may be needed for write access.
LRS: Data is replicated across multiple geographical regions.
Why it's wrong here
This describes geo-redundant storage (GRS/RA-GRS), not LRS. LRS replicates three copies within a single datacenter in the primary region only; the copies are not sent to other regions. Choosing this incorrect option would conflate local redundancy with geo-redundancy, and a regional outage would cause data loss.
ZRS: Data is replicated within a single datacenter.
Why it's wrong here
This describes LRS, not ZRS. ZRS synchronously replicates across three availability zones, which are physically separate datacenters within a region, each with independent infrastructure. The key distinction is that ZRS tolerates a datacenter failure, while single-datacenter replication cannot.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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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.