DP-900 Describe core data concepts Practice Question
Your company stores customer data in Azure Blob Storage. To comply with data residency regulations, you must ensure data is replicated within the same Azure region. Which replication option should you choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse 'replication within the same region' with 'zone-redundant storage' (ZRS) because ZRS also stays within the region, but the question's emphasis on 'data residency' and 'same region' is designed to test whether you know that LRS is the simplest and most restrictive option that keeps all copies in a single location, while ZRS still uses multiple zones which may be considered separate data centers for some compliance definitions.
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
✓
Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
Locally-redundant storage (LRS) replicates data three times within a single physical location in the same Azure region, ensuring data residency compliance by never copying data outside that region. This is the only option that guarantees all replicas stay within one region without any cross-region or cross-zone replication.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Why it's wrong here
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates your blob data to three Azure availability zones within the primary region. While ZRS does keep all copies inside the same geography, the residency requirement can already be satisfied by LRS, which is less expensive and simpler. Choosing ZRS would be over-provisioning because the extra zone-level availability is not required when the only goal is keeping customer data resident in one region.
- ✓
Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
Why this is correct
Locally-redundant storage (LRS) writes three synchronous copies of your customer data within a single physical data center in the primary Azure region. Every replica remains inside the same datacenter and region, so no data is ever replicated across availability-zone or regional boundaries, satisfying strict data-residency requirements. LRS is the lowest-cost redundancy tier that still provides a durable copy when the requirement is simply to keep data in one geography.
- ✗
Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
Why it's wrong here
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) first writes data locally in the primary region, then asynchronously copies it to a paired secondary region in a different geography. This means a full copy of the customer data physically exists outside the original region, which violates any requirement that data remain within a specific country or sovereignty boundary. GRS is intended for cross-region disaster recovery, not for keeping data resident in a single region.
- ✗
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
Why it's wrong here
Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) adds a read-only endpoint to the secondary region that GRS already uses for asynchronous replication. Even with that added read access, the underlying storage service still copies every blob to a secondary region outside the primary geography, so customer data does not remain resident. RA-GRS therefore cannot satisfy a single-region data-residency requirement; the extra read endpoint is an availability feature, not a residency feature.
Quick reference
Azure Blob Storage Tier Comparison
| Tier | Storage Cost | Retrieval Cost | Latency | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | Highest | Lowest | Immediate | Active data, frequent reads |
| Cool | Lower | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / month |
| Cold | Lower still | Higher | Immediate | Data accessed < once / quarter |
| Archive | Lowest | Highest + rehydration delay | Hours | Long-term compliance retention |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Roles and Core Concepts
Key term
Blob storage
Blob storage is a cloud service for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data, like documents, images, and videos.
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
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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.