DP-900 Practice Question: Identify considerations for relational data on Azure
Your company runs a global e-commerce platform on Azure SQL Database. The platform experiences heavy read traffic on product catalog and inventory tables. You need to reduce read latency for users in different geographic regions while keeping write latency low. The solution must be cost-effective and require minimal application changes. Current architecture: a single Azure SQL Database in West US. You have budget for additional Azure resources. What should you implement?
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
✓
Configure Active Geo-Replication to create readable secondaries in regions where users are located.
Active Geo-Replication (option A) is correct because it creates readable secondary databases in multiple Azure regions, allowing read queries to be served locally in each user's region while writes continue to the primary, reducing read latency without changing the application's write path. It is cost-effective relative to a full re-platforming and requires minimal application changes—just directing read-only connections to the regional secondary endpoints. Option B does not fit because migrating to Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes is a major architectural change and typically more expensive, and it changes the data model and consistency semantics. Option C is wrong because Azure Traffic Manager only routes traffic to endpoints and cannot make a single West US database serve reads faster for users in other regions. Option D is incorrect because Read Scale-Out uses a read-only replica in the same region as the primary, so it does not reduce cross-region read latency for geographically distributed users.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure Active Geo-Replication to create readable secondaries in regions where users are located.
Why this is correct
Active Geo-Replication creates readable secondaries in other Azure regions, letting each region serve reads locally and cutting latency. Writes still go to the primary in West US, keeping write latency low, and it needs no application changes beyond connection strings.
- ✗
Migrate the database to Azure Cosmos DB with multi-region writes.
Why it's wrong here
Cosmos DB multi-region writes replaces the relational engine and requires application and schema changes, violating the minimal-change requirement while raising cost. It is tempting because it genuinely delivers low-latency global reads and writes, but the stem specifies Azure SQL Database with existing catalog and inventory tables.
- ✗
Use Azure Traffic Manager to route read requests to the primary database in West US.
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Manager routes clients to endpoints but cannot reduce latency when the sole endpoint remains the West US primary, so distant reads still cross regions. It is tempting as a global routing service, yet it suits distributing traffic across multiple deployed endpoints, which this architecture lacks.
- ✗
Enable Read Scale-Out on the existing database and configure application to use the read-only endpoint.
Why it's wrong here
Read Scale-Out uses the same primary replica's read-only routing, so replicas stay in West US and distant regions see no latency reduction. It is tempting because it offloads read workloads cheaply with no application rewrite, but it addresses read contention, not geographic proximity.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cosmos DB Partitioning Strategies
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.
Key term
Data model
A data model is a blueprint that defines how data is organized, stored, and accessed in a database or data system.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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