Quick Answer
The answer is zone-redundant storage (ZRS). This feature ensures transaction durability by synchronously replicating your Azure SQL Database transaction logs and data files across three physically separate Azure availability zones within the same region, so even if an entire zone fails, committed transactions are preserved at the storage layer without needing a separate database replica. On the DP-900 exam, this tests your understanding of how Azure handles durability at the infrastructure level versus high availability through replicas—a common trap is confusing ZRS with geo-redundant storage, which protects against region-wide disasters rather than zone failures. Remember the memory tip: “ZRS = Zone Resilience for Storage,” meaning your transactions survive a zone outage because the logs are written to three places before acknowledging the commit.
This DP-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe core data concepts. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Your company uses Azure SQL Database and needs to ensure that transactions are durable even if the database instance fails. Which feature should you enable?
Active geo-replication
Why wrong: Disaster recovery feature, not for transaction durability.
Zone-redundant storage
Replicates data across availability zones, ensuring durability.
Transparent Data Encryption
Why wrong: Encrypts data at rest, not related to durability.
Auto-failover groups
Why wrong: Provides high availability, not transaction-level durability.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Zone-redundant storage
Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates your Azure SQL Database transaction logs and data files synchronously across three Azure availability zones within the same region. This ensures that even if an entire zone fails, committed transactions are preserved and the database remains available, providing durability at the storage layer without requiring a separate database replica.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Active geo-replication
Why it's wrong here
Disaster recovery feature, not for transaction durability.
Zone-redundant storage
Why this is correct
Replicates data across availability zones, ensuring durability.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Transparent Data Encryption
Why it's wrong here
Encrypts data at rest, not related to durability.
Auto-failover groups
Why it's wrong here
Provides high availability, not transaction-level durability.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse durability (ensuring committed data survives failures) with high availability or disaster recovery features like geo-replication or failover groups, which address availability rather than the storage-level persistence of transactions.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, zone-redundant storage uses synchronous writes to three separate availability zones, ensuring that a transaction log record is only acknowledged as committed after it has been written to all three zones. This is implemented via the Azure Storage platform's ZRS replication, which provides a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 0 and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of minutes for zone failures, unlike locally redundant storage (LRS) which only replicates within a single datacenter.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
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FAQ
Describe core data concepts — This question tests Describe core data concepts — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Zone-redundant storage — Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates your Azure SQL Database transaction logs and data files synchronously across three Azure availability zones within the same region. This ensures that even if an entire zone fails, committed transactions are preserved and the database remains available, providing durability at the storage layer without requiring a separate database replica.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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