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SC-100 Practice Question: Designing a data protection strategy for Azure…
A company is designing a data protection strategy for Azure SQL Database. They need to ensure that backups are retained for 7 years to meet regulatory compliance. Which Azure feature should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Point-in-Time Restore (PITR) with Long-Term Retention (LTR), mistakenly thinking PITR can be configured for years-long retention, when in fact PITR is limited to a maximum of 35 days and LTR is the only feature that supports multi-year archival retention.
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
✓
Long-Term Retention (LTR)
Long-Term Retention (LTR) for Azure SQL Database allows you to retain full database backups for up to 10 years, which meets the 7-year regulatory compliance requirement. LTR is specifically designed for archival and compliance scenarios, storing backups in separate containers with configurable retention policies based on weekly, monthly, or yearly intervals.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Geo-redundant backup storage
Why it's wrong here
Geo-redundant backup storage refers to how backup copies are replicated to a paired Azure region for durability, not how long they are kept. While it protects against regional loss by creating a secondary copy, the retention period is still governed by the backup policy—PITR at 35 days or LTR up to 10 years. Choosing GRS alone does not extend the retention window, so it fails to meet a compliance-driven need for long-term data protection.
- ✓
Long-Term Retention (LTR)
Why this is correct
Long-Term Retention (LTR) is the correct choice because it preserves database backups for up to 10 years, commonly required for regulatory compliance or historical data archiving. LTR operates separately from automated short-term backups, allowing you to define independent retention schedules—for example, weekly full backups kept for 5 years. This directly addresses the scenario's need for an extended data protection strategy beyond the standard 35-day window.
- ✗
Point-in-Time Restore
Why it's wrong here
Point-in-Time Restore (PITR) enables recovery to any moment within a short retention window, which in Azure SQL is a maximum of 35 days. It is designed for operational recovery from accidental changes or corruption, not for long-term archival compliance. Because the retention period is bounded by the backup policy and cannot be extended beyond 35 days, PITR alone cannot satisfy a data protection strategy requiring multi-year retention.
- ✗
Active Geo-Replication
Why it's wrong here
Active Geo-Replication continuously replicates data to readable secondary databases in another region to support high availability and fast failover. It does not store historical backup snapshots or provide any retention mechanism; it is a live data synchronization feature, not an archival backup solution. While it improves business continuity, it offers nothing for long-term data retention or compliance, making it an incorrect answer here.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SC-100 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 SC-100 exam.