DP-900 Practice Question: Identify considerations for relational data on Azure
Which TWO features are supported by Azure SQL Database to provide high availability?
⚠ Common exam trap
DP-900 often tests whether candidates confuse IaaS SQL Server features (Always On AG, log shipping) with Azure SQL Database PaaS HA features, and whether they mistake backup/restore (PITR) for high availability.
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
✓
Active geo-replication
Active geo-replication (C) is correct because Azure SQL Database supports it as a built-in feature that continuously replicates a database to up to four readable secondary databases in different Azure regions, enabling fast manual failover to maintain availability during a regional outage. Auto-failover groups (D) is correct because it builds on active geo-replication to provide automatic failover of a group of databases to a secondary region, along with read-write and read-only listener endpoints, ensuring high availability without manual intervention. Always On availability groups (A) is not a native Azure SQL Database feature; it applies to SQL Server on Azure VMs and Azure SQL Managed Instance, not the PaaS single-database/multi-database model. Point-in-time restore (B) is a backup-based data recovery feature for restoring a database to an earlier state, not a high-availability mechanism. Log shipping (E) is a SQL Server disaster-recovery technique that is not offered as a built-in high-availability feature in Azure SQL Database.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Always On availability groups
Why it's wrong here
Always On availability groups are a SQL Server enterprise feature that you configure manually on Windows Server Failover Clustering, typically in IaaS or on-premises. In Azure SQL Database, a PaaS service, the platform automatically manages multiple synchronous replicas in the background to provide built-in high availability, but you do not get access to configure an Always On group. Thus Always On is not a feature you can directly use as a tenant in Azure SQL Database.
- ✗
Point-in-time restore
Why it's wrong here
Point-in-time restore (PITR) is a backup and recovery capability that lets you revert a database to any earlier time within the configured retention period, using automatic backups. It is designed to rescue data from accidental deletion, corruption, or logical errors, not to keep the service available during an outage or regional failure. Because it requires a restore operation and downtime, it does not satisfy the high availability and disaster recovery requirement.
- ✓
Active geo-replication
Why this is correct
Active geo-replication is a built-in Azure SQL Database feature that continuously replicates committed transactions to readable secondary databases in a different Azure region. It supports up to four secondaries per primary, and you can manually initiate failover or configure read workloads to query the secondaries for load balancing. These secondaries are real database endpoints, making the feature a direct high-availability and disaster-recovery mechanism with no need to set up any external infrastructure.
- ✓
Auto-failover groups
Why this is correct
Auto-failover groups extend active geo-replication by adding an automatic failover policy, a listener endpoint, and the ability to fail over an entire logical server (including multiple databases) as a unit. When a primary becomes unreachable, the group automatically promotes the geo-secondary to become the new primary, preserving the same connection string. This is a higher-level HA/DR capability that offers automatic, coordinated failover, unlike pure active geo-replication which only supports manual, per-database failover.
- ✗
Log shipping
Why it's wrong here
Log shipping is a legacy SQL Server technique that periodically backs up transaction logs and restores them to a secondary server, typically outside of Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database does not expose transaction log files or the ability to schedule these jobs; the service uses Always On technology and geo-replication internally for resilience. Because log shipping cannot be configured against a database hosted in Azure SQL Database, it is not a supported high-availability feature in this context.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Column-Family Databases (Cassandra API)
Key term
SQL Managed Instance
SQL Managed Instance is a cloud database service from Azure that gives you most of the features of a full SQL Server instance without you having to manage the underlying hardware or software patches.
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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Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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.