Microsoft AZ-305  Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions Exam Dumps and Practice Test Questions Set 5 Q81-100

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Question 81

A company wants to deploy a globally available web application that must provide automatic failover, SSL offloading, and DDoS protection. Which combination of Azure services is most suitable?

Answer

A) Azure Front Door, Web Application Firewall, and Azure DDoS Protection
B) Azure Load Balancer and Traffic Manager
C) Azure Application Gateway with VPN Gateway
D) Azure CDN and Bastion

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Front Door, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Azure DDoS Protection.

When designing a globally available web application, it is critical to ensure high performance, security, and resiliency while minimizing latency for end-users worldwide. Azure Front Door provides Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) global load balancing, which ensures that traffic is intelligently routed to the closest and healthiest backend endpoint. This not only reduces latency for users by directing them to the nearest point of presence but also ensures automatic failover if a regional endpoint becomes unhealthy or unavailable. The failover mechanism is critical for business continuity and disaster recovery planning.

Front Door also provides SSL offloading, which moves SSL/TLS encryption and decryption workloads from backend servers to the Front Door edge. This reduces the processing burden on backend servers, improving performance and scalability. SSL offloading ensures that end-to-end encryption remains intact from the client to the edge, while backend connections can optionally remain encrypted or optimized based on internal policies.

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) is integrated with Front Door to protect against common web vulnerabilities. WAF provides pre-configured rules and can be customized to defend against SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other OWASP Top 10 threats. This centralized security approach is easier to manage than deploying individual WAFs at each backend, especially in multi-region deployments. By combining Front Door with WAF, enterprises ensure both global performance and strong application-layer security, a key consideration in AZ-305 exam objectives that focus on designing secure and resilient infrastructure solutions.

Azure DDoS Protection safeguards applications against large-scale volumetric attacks, protocol attacks, and resource-targeted attacks. Standard DDoS protection monitors traffic patterns and applies automatic mitigation to protect applications without manual intervention. This is crucial for globally deployed applications that might be exposed to internet-based threats at any moment. The combination of DDoS Protection with Front Door ensures that the web application remains highly available, even during malicious attacks.

Option B (Azure Load Balancer and Traffic Manager) primarily provides regional Layer 4 load balancing and DNS-based traffic routing. While Traffic Manager can route traffic to different regions based on latency, it does not offer application-layer security, SSL offloading, or integrated DDoS protection. It is suitable for simpler workloads but does not meet the requirements of secure, highly available, globally distributed enterprise applications.

Option C (Application Gateway with VPN Gateway) is largely regional. Application Gateway offers Layer 7 load balancing and WAF features, but without Front Door, it cannot provide global low-latency routing or multi-region failover. VPN Gateway is used for secure site-to-site or point-to-site connectivity, which is unrelated to the global availability and low-latency routing requirements of this scenario.

Option D (CDN and Bastion) improves delivery for static content but does not manage dynamic traffic or multi-region failover. Bastion is used to securely manage VMs over RDP/SSH without exposing them publicly and has no impact on web application delivery.

By using Front Door, WAF, and DDoS Protection, organizations achieve resiliency, global reach, security, and performance optimization. This architecture ensures that:

Traffic is routed to the closest healthy endpoint, reducing latency globally.

Failover occurs automatically in case of regional outages.

Web applications are protected against common threats and volumetric attacks.

SSL/TLS workload is offloaded from backend servers, improving performance and scalability.

Monitoring and diagnostics can be integrated using Azure Monitor and Application Insights, enabling visibility into traffic, performance, and security events.

From an AZ-305 perspective, this solution aligns with designing secure, high-availability architectures, leveraging platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capabilities to reduce operational overhead while ensuring performance, scalability, and compliance. Enterprises can also integrate Front Door with Azure Traffic Analytics to analyze global traffic patterns, optimize routing strategies, and proactively identify anomalies, further enhancing operational efficiency.

In multi-region deployments, combining Front Door with zone-redundant backend services such as Azure App Service or Azure Kubernetes Service ensures end-to-end resiliency, while WAF and DDoS Protection provide security controls at scale. This holistic approach satisfies enterprise-grade availability, security, and performance requirements, which is exactly the type of architecture the AZ-305 exam focuses on when evaluating candidates’ ability to design cloud infrastructure solutions that are resilient, secure, and optimized for global reach.

By planning for threat mitigation, automatic failover, and low-latency access, the architecture supports mission-critical workloads with high operational continuity, compliance adherence, and global accessibility—all key objectives in the AZ-305 Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam.

Question 82

A company wants to implement a serverless API that automatically scales in response to HTTP requests, queue messages, and database triggers. Which Azure service is most appropriate?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is a serverless compute service that enables enterprises to build event-driven applications without worrying about underlying infrastructure. This service is particularly useful for APIs that must scale dynamically in response to varying workloads. Unlike traditional VM-based or containerized approaches, Azure Functions abstracts the management of the operating system, scaling, and server provisioning. This allows development teams to focus entirely on business logic and event handling, which is a core principle in cloud-native architectures recommended by Microsoft’s AZ-305 exam objectives.

Azure Functions supports multiple trigger types, including:

HTTP triggers – for APIs that must respond to incoming HTTP requests. This makes it easy to build RESTful endpoints or webhooks for external systems.

Queue triggers – for asynchronous, decoupled workloads. Queue triggers can process messages from Azure Storage Queues or Service Bus queues, enabling reliable message-driven workflows.

Database triggers – for scenarios where code needs to react to database changes, such as Cosmos DB change feed or SQL Database events. This supports real-time data processing, analytics, or workflow automation.

Scalability is one of the primary benefits of Azure Functions. The service automatically scales based on demand. For example, if hundreds of messages arrive in a queue or thousands of HTTP requests occur simultaneously, Azure Functions will scale out to multiple function instances to handle the load, and scale back down when demand decreases. This elasticity ensures cost efficiency, as you only pay for compute resources while functions execute, unlike VMs or App Service plans where you pay for pre-allocated capacity regardless of usage.

Integration with other Azure services enhances both functionality and security:

Key Vault allows secure storage of secrets, API keys, and connection strings. Functions can access these securely via managed identities, eliminating the need to embed sensitive credentials in code.

Cosmos DB or SQL Database can serve as persistent storage, enabling transactional or event-driven workflows.

Event Grid can be used to orchestrate complex event workflows across multiple services, allowing serverless APIs to participate in enterprise-grade architectures.

Application Insights provides observability, allowing developers to monitor execution times, failure rates, latency, and resource usage, which is critical for production-grade deployments.

Comparing Azure Functions to the other options:

Option B (Virtual Machines) requires manual setup, patching, scaling, and monitoring. While powerful, VMs introduce operational overhead and are not cost-efficient for event-driven workloads. Scaling VMs in response to fluctuating demand is slower and more resource-intensive.

Option C (Azure Kubernetes Service) is ideal for containerized microservices with complex orchestration requirements. However, using AKS for simple serverless APIs introduces unnecessary complexity, as developers must manage clusters, pods, scaling policies, and networking.

Option D (App Service Plan – Dedicated) provides PaaS hosting for web applications but is not serverless. Dedicated App Service Plans require pre-allocated compute resources, which increases cost and reduces the flexibility of automatic scaling compared to Functions.

By choosing Azure Functions, companies benefit from:

High availability: Azure Functions operates across multiple availability zones, ensuring resilience in case of regional failures.

Operational efficiency: No need to manage OS, scaling, or underlying infrastructure.

Event-driven architecture: Functions can integrate seamlessly with queues, blobs, databases, and HTTP triggers.

Cost optimization: Pay-per-use model ensures you only pay for actual execution time.

Security: Integration with Key Vault, managed identities, and role-based access control (RBAC) ensures sensitive data is protected.

Monitoring and diagnostics: Application Insights provides deep telemetry, enabling proactive troubleshooting and optimization.

From an AZ-305 perspective, this solution demonstrates the design of a scalable, resilient, and secure serverless architecture. Microsoft recommends serverless functions for event-driven, highly available, and cost-optimized workloads, making Azure Functions a core part of the exam’s design scenarios.

Architecturally, Azure Functions supports durable functions for long-running workflows, fan-out/fan-in patterns, and orchestrations that maintain state across executions. This is critical for enterprise-grade applications that require complex workflow management without traditional infrastructure overhead.

In conclusion, Azure Functions provides a fully managed, scalable, event-driven compute platform. It integrates with multiple triggers, storage, and monitoring solutions, offering a cost-effective and operationally efficient alternative to VMs or Kubernetes for serverless APIs. This aligns perfectly with AZ-305 design principles, enabling enterprises to build highly available, secure, and resilient applications that respond dynamically to demand while minimizing operational complexity.

Question 83

A company requires a highly available relational database for a multi-tier application that supports zone-redundancy and automatic backups. Which solution is best?

Answer

A) Azure SQL Database with zone-redundancy
B) SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Database for PostgreSQL single instance
D) Azure Table Storage

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure SQL Database with zone-redundancy.

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database platform designed for high availability, scalability, and operational efficiency. In multi-tier applications, the database layer often serves as a critical backbone that must provide resilience against failures, automated management, and secure data storage. Using a zone-redundant configuration, Azure SQL Database ensures that database replicas exist across multiple availability zones within a region, protecting against hardware, network, or power failures. This configuration guarantees 99.99% availability for the service.

Automatic backups are built into Azure SQL Database, allowing point-in-time restore for disaster recovery scenarios. The platform also provides geo-replication, enabling databases to be replicated to secondary regions for disaster recovery. Integration with Azure Key Vault allows secure management of credentials and encryption keys, enhancing compliance and security.

Option B (SQL Server on Azure VMs) allows more control over database configuration, but high availability must be manually implemented, typically requiring Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering, and backup management. This increases operational overhead and potential for misconfigurations.

Option C (PostgreSQL single instance) does not provide built-in zone redundancy, making it susceptible to single points of failure. While PostgreSQL supports read replicas and backups, high availability and automated failover require additional configuration and monitoring.

Option D (Azure Table Storage) is a NoSQL key-value store, unsuitable for relational workloads that require ACID transactions, joins, or complex queries.

From an AZ-305 perspective, designing a highly available database layer involves selecting managed services that minimize operational overhead while maximizing resiliency. Azure SQL Database with zone redundancy aligns perfectly with these objectives. Enterprises benefit from automatic patching, threat detection, auditing, and compliance features without manual intervention. By leveraging built-in scaling and elastic pools, companies can adjust resources dynamically based on workload demand, ensuring cost efficiency.

Furthermore, integration with Azure Monitor and Azure Metrics enables continuous monitoring of performance, replication health, and failover readiness. This ensures that any disruptions are identified proactively, and the infrastructure remains aligned with recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO). Azure SQL Database also supports hyperscale tiering, allowing multi-terabyte databases to scale seamlessly for very large workloads.

In conclusion, Azure SQL Database with zone-redundancy provides a resilient, scalable, secure, and fully managed relational database platform, minimizing operational effort while meeting enterprise-grade high availability, disaster recovery, and compliance requirements. This is precisely the type of solution expected by the AZ-305 exam when evaluating multi-tier, highly available infrastructure designs.

Question 84

A company wants to deploy a multi-region web application that must provide low-latency access and automatic failover. Which combination of Azure services is most suitable?

Answer

A) Azure Front Door with Web Application Firewall
B) Azure Load Balancer and Traffic Manager
C) Azure Application Gateway with VPN Gateway
D) Azure CDN and Bastion

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Front Door with Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Azure Front Door is a global HTTP load balancer and application delivery network. It directs user traffic to the closest healthy backend, which significantly reduces latency for end users worldwide. It also supports automatic failover, ensuring that if a regional backend fails, traffic is redirected seamlessly to another healthy region. This is crucial for multi-region web applications where downtime can directly impact revenue and user experience.

The Web Application Firewall provides centralized security, protecting the application against SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other common web vulnerabilities. Using Front Door with WAF provides a single point of control for both performance optimization and security enforcement, reducing operational complexity compared to managing multiple regional WAF instances.

Option B (Load Balancer + Traffic Manager) provides regional load balancing and DNS-based routing, but it does not deliver application-layer security, SSL offloading, or integrated DDoS protection. Traffic Manager also uses DNS-based routing, which can lead to stale IP caching issues, increasing potential latency.

Option C (Application Gateway + VPN Gateway) is regional, and while Application Gateway provides Layer 7 load balancing, it cannot perform global routing or failover. VPN Gateway secures network connectivity but is irrelevant for web application failover or low-latency delivery.

Option D (CDN + Bastion) only accelerates static content delivery and allows secure VM management; it does not provide global failover, dynamic content routing, or application-layer security.

Using Front Door and WAF, organizations achieve:

Low-latency delivery for global users.

Automatic failover across regions for high availability.

Application-layer protection with WAF rules.

Centralized SSL offloading for better performance.

Integration with Azure Monitor and Application Insights for observability.

This approach aligns with AZ-305 objectives for designing globally distributed, secure, and resilient web applications. It reduces operational overhead while ensuring high availability, performance optimization, and security compliance across regions.

Question 85

A company wants to migrate on-premises workloads to Azure with continuous replication, planned failover, and non-disruptive testing. Which service should they use?

Answer

A) Azure Site Recovery
B) Azure Backup
C) Azure Migrate
D) Azure Automation

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Site Recovery (ASR).

ASR provides continuous replication of on-premises virtual machines, physical servers, and workloads to Azure. This replication ensures that in case of an outage, workloads can failover to Azure with minimal downtime. ASR supports both planned failovers, which are useful during maintenance or upgrades, and unplanned failovers, which address unexpected outages.

Non-disruptive testing is one of ASR’s critical features. It allows enterprises to validate recovery plans without impacting production environments. Recovery plans orchestrate the failover of multi-tier applications, ensuring that dependencies are maintained and that application tiers come online in the correct order.

Option B (Backup) protects data but does not provide replication or failover orchestration. Option C (Azure Migrate) assists with discovery and assessment, but it does not handle live failover. Option D (Automation) provides task automation but cannot manage failover or replication processes.

ASR aligns with AZ-305 objectives for hybrid cloud migration, high availability, and disaster recovery planning. Enterprises can monitor replication health via Azure Monitor, receive alerts, and generate reports on RPO and RTO compliance. ASR simplifies operational workflows, reduces downtime risk, and ensures business continuity, which is essential for enterprise-grade workloads.

By integrating ASR with Azure Networking, Key Vault, and Security Center, companies can ensure secure and resilient hybrid cloud architectures. Recovery plans can be updated automatically, and multi-region replication provides additional redundancy. ASR also supports compliance requirements for regulated industries by ensuring data is replicated and accessible according to policy.

Question 86

A company wants to implement a serverless, event-driven application that reacts to Blob storage events, queue messages, and HTTP triggers. Which Azure service is most appropriate?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is a fully managed, serverless platform that executes code in response to events. It automatically scales based on demand and eliminates the need for managing infrastructure. Supported triggers include Blob Storage (for file uploads), Queue Storage (for message processing), and HTTP requests (for API endpoints).

Integration with Key Vault ensures secure management of secrets. Functions can store processed data in Cosmos DB or SQL Database, enabling reliable event-driven workflows. Application Insights provides monitoring, logging, and telemetry to ensure observability, which is crucial in production environments.

Option B (VMs) requires manual scaling and operational management. Option C (AKS) adds unnecessary complexity for lightweight serverless applications. Option D (Dedicated App Service) is not truly serverless and requires pre-allocated resources, limiting automatic scaling.

Azure Functions aligns with AZ-305 objectives by providing scalable, resilient, and secure serverless workflows. It supports durable functions for orchestrating long-running processes, retry policies, and error handling for reliability. Developers can deploy via CI/CD pipelines with minimal downtime.

Question 87

A company needs a globally distributed NoSQL database with multi-region writes, low-latency reads, and automatic scaling for an IoT application. Which service should they choose?

Answer

A) Azure Cosmos DB
B) Azure SQL Database
C) Azure Database for PostgreSQL
D) Azure Table Storage

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Cosmos DB.

Cosmos DB is a fully managed, globally distributed NoSQL database designed for high availability, low-latency access, and automatic scaling. For IoT applications, data is ingested from devices across multiple regions, requiring low-latency writes and multi-region replication. Cosmos DB supports multiple consistency levels, enabling enterprises to balance performance with data integrity.

It integrates with Event Grid, Functions, and Stream Analytics for real-time processing, analytics, and workflow orchestration. Cosmos DB automatically scales throughput and storage, ensuring it can handle sudden spikes in IoT data ingestion without manual intervention.

Option B (SQL Database) supports geo-replication but does not provide multi-region writes, which limits its suitability for globally distributed IoT applications. Option C (PostgreSQL) offers read replicas but lacks low-latency global writes. Option D (Table Storage) lacks advanced querying and multi-region replication features.

Cosmos DB aligns with AZ-305 objectives for highly available, resilient, and scalable database architectures. Enterprises can implement real-time analytics, dashboards, and alerts while ensuring low-latency responses for globally distributed IoT devices.

Question 88

A company is designing a multi-tier application requiring high availability, secure secret management, and zone-redundancy for the database layer. Which architecture should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant
B) Azure Virtual Machines, SQL Server, and Storage Account
C) AKS with PostgreSQL single instance
D) Azure Functions with Cosmos DB

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant.

This architecture provides resilient hosting, secure secrets management, and highly available database infrastructure. App Service allows automatic scaling and deployment slots for zero-downtime deployments. Key Vault secures credentials and connection strings using managed identities. SQL Database zone-redundancy ensures automatic failover across availability zones.

Option B introduces operational overhead. Option C lacks built-in high availability. Option D is serverless and event-driven, unsuitable for relational multi-tier workloads.

This design aligns with AZ-305 by providing scalable, secure, and resilient infrastructure, minimizing operational complexity while meeting enterprise-grade high availability and disaster recovery objectives.

Question 89

A company wants to migrate on-premises workloads to Azure with minimal downtime, continuous replication, and failover orchestration. Which service should they use?

Answer

A) Azure Site Recovery
B) Azure Backup
C) Azure Migrate
D) Azure Automation

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Site Recovery.

ASR enables continuous replication, supports planned and unplanned failovers, and orchestrates recovery plans for multi-tier applications. Backup, Migrate, and Automation do not provide live replication or failover orchestration.

ASR aligns with AZ-305 objectives by providing highly available hybrid cloud migration solutions, ensuring minimal downtime, reliable failover, and operational efficiency. Enterprises can monitor replication health and compliance, meeting RPO and RTO targets.

Question 90

A company wants to implement a serverless, event-driven workflow that reacts to Blob storage events, queue messages, and HTTP triggers, scaling automatically. Which service should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is serverless, fully managed, and scales automatically in response to events. It integrates with Blob Storage, Queues, HTTP triggers, and databases for reactive workflows. Key Vault ensures secure secret access, and Application Insights provides monitoring. VMs, AKS, and Dedicated App Service are less suitable for lightweight, event-driven architectures.

This approach aligns with AZ-305 objectives by enabling cost-effective, scalable, and resilient serverless architectures capable of handling dynamic workloads while maintaining security and observability.

Question 91

A company needs a globally distributed, low-latency database for an e-commerce platform supporting multi-region writes. Which service should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure Cosmos DB
B) Azure SQL Database
C) Azure Database for PostgreSQL
D) Azure Table Storage

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Cosmos DB.

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed, globally distributed NoSQL database that is specifically designed for scenarios requiring low-latency reads, multi-region writes, and elastic scalability. For an e-commerce platform, the ability to process orders, inventory updates, and customer interactions in real-time across multiple regions is critical. Cosmos DB ensures that users in any geographic location can access the database with minimal latency while supporting simultaneous writes to multiple regions, which is essential for maintaining data consistency and availability in a globally distributed environment.

One of the key differentiators of Cosmos DB is its support for multi-region writes, enabling multiple active regions to handle write operations simultaneously. This is essential for e-commerce platforms where inventory updates, payment transactions, and customer activities may originate from anywhere in the world. Multi-region writes are complemented by automatic conflict resolution mechanisms, allowing applications to resolve data inconsistencies according to the chosen consistency model. Cosmos DB supports five consistency models: strong, bounded staleness, session, consistent prefix, and eventual. This flexibility allows architects to choose the best balance between consistency, latency, and throughput based on business requirements.

Low-latency access is achieved because Cosmos DB replicates data across all configured regions. This ensures that read requests are served from the nearest replica, providing millisecond-level response times. For e-commerce applications, this means faster product searches, quicker checkout experiences, and overall improved customer satisfaction. Cosmos DB also guarantees 99.999% read and write availability for multi-region deployments, which is crucial for mission-critical platforms where downtime can result in lost revenue and diminished trust.

Azure Cosmos DB is fully serverless or provisioned throughput capable, which allows organizations to scale elastically based on demand. During peak events like Black Friday sales, the database can automatically scale to handle massive spikes in traffic, ensuring seamless operations without manual intervention. This aligns with AZ-305 objectives around designing highly available, scalable, and resilient database solutions.

Integration with other Azure services strengthens Cosmos DB’s position for e-commerce scenarios:

Azure Functions or Event Grid can be used to trigger workflows such as order fulfillment, inventory adjustments, or notifications whenever data changes occur.

Azure Stream Analytics allows real-time analytics on transactional data, enabling predictive inventory management, fraud detection, and customer behavior analysis.

Azure Key Vault ensures sensitive data like API keys, database connection strings, and encryption keys are managed securely, complying with regulatory requirements such as PCI DSS.

Azure Monitor and Application Insights provide deep telemetry and monitoring, allowing operations teams to track latency, throughput, and request success rates across global regions.

Comparing the other options:

Azure SQL Database supports geo-replication but only provides single-write regions for active-active scenarios. While it can handle read-heavy global workloads through read replicas, it is not ideal for applications requiring simultaneous multi-region writes, making it less suitable for globally distributed e-commerce platforms.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL supports read replicas and can be deployed in multiple regions, but like SQL Database, it does not natively support multi-region writes with guaranteed low-latency performance. Additional configuration, such as custom conflict resolution, is required, which increases operational complexity.

Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store but lacks advanced querying capabilities, multi-region replication, and transactional support, making it unsuitable for complex e-commerce workflows that require consistent, high-performance database operations.

From an architecture and design perspective, Cosmos DB enables several advanced scenarios for e-commerce platforms:

Real-time order processing: With low-latency writes and reads, order confirmations, inventory adjustments, and payment validation can happen in real-time, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Global scalability: Multi-region writes allow the application to handle traffic from any region without bottlenecks, eliminating single points of failure.

Resiliency and high availability: Automatic failover across regions ensures that even in the event of a regional outage, the platform remains fully operational.

Operational efficiency: Cosmos DB is fully managed, meaning patching, updates, backups, and monitoring are handled by the platform, reducing administrative overhead.

Integration with analytics and AI: Cosmos DB can serve as a source for Azure Synapse Analytics, Power BI, or AI-driven personalization engines, enabling data-driven decision making and targeted marketing campaigns.

From a compliance and security perspective, Cosmos DB integrates with Azure Active Directory (AAD) for access control, supports encryption at rest and in transit, and can be configured with network isolation using virtual network service endpoints or private endpoints, ensuring sensitive transactional data is protected according to enterprise standards.

For AZ-305 exam scenarios, Cosmos DB exemplifies the principles of designing highly available, globally distributed, and resilient data architectures. It demonstrates an understanding of how to select the right database service based on application requirements such as latency, throughput, consistency, and operational overhead. It also highlights the ability to design integrated, secure, and scalable solutions that align with Microsoft Azure best practices for global workloads.

In conclusion, Azure Cosmos DB is the optimal choice for a globally distributed e-commerce platform requiring multi-region writes, low-latency reads, automatic scaling, and high availability. Its native integration with other Azure services, support for multiple consistency levels, and fully managed operations make it the preferred solution for modern, globally distributed applications. Enterprises using Cosmos DB can ensure fast, reliable, and secure operations, while meeting the objectives of the AZ-305 exam in designing resilient, scalable, and highly available infrastructure solutions.

Question 92

A company wants to design a multi-tier application that requires high availability, automatic scaling, and secure secret management. Which architecture should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant
B) Azure Virtual Machines, SQL Server, and Storage Account
C) Azure Kubernetes Service with PostgreSQL single instance
D) Azure Functions with Cosmos DB

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant.

Designing a multi-tier application involves considering scalability, high availability, and security at every layer—presentation, business logic, and data. Azure App Service provides the web and API hosting layer in a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment. App Service offers automatic scaling, both vertical and horizontal, based on metrics such as CPU usage, memory consumption, or request volume. This ensures that applications can handle unexpected traffic spikes without manual intervention. App Service also supports deployment slots, enabling zero-downtime deployments by allowing staging environments to be swapped with production once validated.

For secure secret management, Azure Key Vault centralizes the storage of API keys, database connection strings, certificates, and encryption keys. Key Vault integrates with managed identities in App Service, allowing applications to access secrets securely without embedding credentials in the code. This minimizes the risk of credential exposure and simplifies secret rotation, addressing compliance and security objectives outlined in the AZ-305 exam.

The database layer is implemented with Azure SQL Database configured for zone redundancy. Zone-redundant databases replicate data across multiple availability zones, protecting against regional failures and ensuring high availability. This eliminates single points of failure and provides automatic failover in the event of zonal disruptions. SQL Database also offers automated backups, point-in-time restores, and geo-replication, which can be used for disaster recovery and read-scaling.

Option B (VMs + SQL Server + Storage) requires extensive manual management of operating systems, patches, failover clustering, backups, and monitoring. While flexible, it introduces operational complexity and increases the risk of misconfiguration.

Option C (AKS + PostgreSQL single instance) is suitable for containerized applications but lacks built-in zone-redundancy for the database unless additional configuration is applied. AKS also requires more operational effort to manage scaling, networking, monitoring, and orchestration.

Option D (Functions + Cosmos DB) is event-driven and serverless, which may be ideal for microservices or stateless workloads, but it does not provide a traditional relational database tier necessary for many multi-tier applications with complex transactions or ACID compliance.

By combining App Service, Key Vault, and SQL Database zone-redundancy, enterprises achieve:

High availability: App Service is built on an SLA-backed PaaS infrastructure; zone-redundant SQL Database ensures database resilience.

Automatic scaling: App Service and SQL Database can scale elastically, accommodating growth in user demand.

Secure secret management: Key Vault ensures that sensitive data such as connection strings or API keys are protected.

Operational efficiency: Managed services minimize administrative overhead while providing patching, monitoring, and disaster recovery.

Observability and monitoring: Integration with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights allows enterprises to track performance, troubleshoot issues, and optimize workloads proactively.

This architecture aligns directly with AZ-305 objectives for designing scalable, secure, and resilient multi-tier applications. It allows enterprises to meet RPO/RTO requirements, simplify operations, and ensure security and compliance for critical workloads.

Question 93

A company wants to migrate on-premises workloads to Azure with continuous replication, automated failover, and minimal downtime. Which service should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure Site Recovery
B) Azure Backup
C) Azure Migrate
D) Azure Automation

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Site Recovery (ASR).

Azure Site Recovery is a Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) platform that enables enterprises to migrate workloads with continuous replication from on-premises environments to Azure. This replication ensures that in the event of a failure, workloads can failover automatically to Azure with minimal disruption.

ASR supports both planned and unplanned failovers. Planned failovers are useful during maintenance or upgrades, while unplanned failovers handle unexpected outages, ensuring business continuity. Recovery plans allow for orchestration of multi-tier applications, ensuring that dependent workloads start in the correct order to maintain application integrity.

Non-disruptive failover testing is a key feature of ASR. Enterprises can validate their disaster recovery strategy without impacting production systems. During testing, Azure automatically provisions a sandbox environment to simulate failover, allowing IT teams to verify RTOs and RPOs, train staff, and test backup workflows.

Option B (Azure Backup) provides data protection, but it does not include replication, orchestration, or failover automation. Option C (Azure Migrate) is primarily a discovery and assessment tool, not a live replication solution. Option D (Azure Automation) provides task automation, but cannot orchestrate replication or failover.

Integrating ASR with Azure Networking ensures that failover workloads retain connectivity, while integration with Key Vault secures sensitive configuration settings. Monitoring and alerting through Azure Monitor and Log Analytics provides operational visibility. Enterprises can also configure multi-region replication to meet strict RTO and RPO objectives for mission-critical workloads.

From an AZ-305 perspective, ASR demonstrates designing resilient hybrid cloud infrastructure, enabling enterprises to achieve business continuity, minimal downtime, and operational efficiency during migration or disaster recovery. It reduces manual effort, automates recovery, and provides compliance-ready recovery documentation, making it ideal for enterprise-grade environments.

Question 94

A company wants a serverless, event-driven workflow that reacts to Blob storage events, queue messages, and HTTP requests, automatically scaling with demand. Which service is most suitable?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is a serverless compute service that executes code in response to events, such as file uploads in Blob storage, new messages in a queue, or HTTP requests. It automatically scales based on demand, ensuring that applications remain highly responsive without requiring manual scaling or infrastructure management.

Key benefits of Azure Functions include:

Event-driven architecture: Functions respond immediately to triggers, enabling real-time processing of user uploads, workflow automation, and API requests.

Cost efficiency: The pay-per-use model ensures enterprises only pay for execution time and resources consumed, unlike VMs or dedicated App Service Plans.

Security: Integration with Key Vault and managed identities allows secure access to secrets and resources without embedding credentials.

Integration with other Azure services: Functions can integrate seamlessly with Cosmos DB, Event Grid, Logic Apps, and Service Bus for end-to-end workflows.

Observability: Application Insights provides telemetry on performance, errors, and request rates, enabling proactive monitoring.

Option B (VMs) requires manual scaling and management, making it inefficient for event-driven workloads. Option C (AKS) is suitable for containerized workloads but introduces orchestration overhead for simple workflows. Option D (Dedicated App Service) is not fully serverless, requiring pre-allocated resources and reducing elasticity.

From an AZ-305 perspective, Azure Functions demonstrates the principles of serverless, scalable, and resilient architecture design. It enables enterprises to deploy microservices or event-driven applications with minimal operational effort while maintaining security, observability, and reliability. Functions can also be orchestrated using Durable Functions to manage long-running workflows and complex dependencies without compromising the serverless model.

Question 95

A company requires a globally distributed NoSQL database for IoT telemetry with low-latency reads and multi-region writes. Which service is most appropriate?

Answer

A) Azure Cosmos DB
B) Azure SQL Database
C) Azure Database for PostgreSQL
D) Azure Table Storage

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Cosmos DB.

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed, globally distributed NoSQL database designed for high-throughput, low-latency applications such as IoT telemetry, gaming, and e-commerce. For IoT applications, millisecond-level reads and writes are critical because devices continuously send telemetry data that must be ingested and processed in real-time across multiple regions. Cosmos DB enables multi-region writes, allowing devices worldwide to send data simultaneously without bottlenecks.

Key advantages include:

Consistency models: Cosmos DB provides five consistency models—strong, bounded staleness, session, consistent prefix, and eventual—allowing architects to balance performance and data integrity.

Elastic scalability: Throughput and storage can scale dynamically based on workload demands. During spikes, such as IoT events, Cosmos DB automatically adjusts resources, eliminating manual intervention.

Global distribution: Data is replicated across multiple regions, providing low-latency reads and resiliency. This ensures telemetry data is available near real-time for analytics, monitoring, and dashboards.

Integration with Azure services: Cosmos DB integrates with Event Grid, Azure Functions, and Stream Analytics for real-time processing and analytics. Data can be stored long-term in Data Lake or Synapse Analytics for further reporting or machine learning workloads.

Security and compliance: Cosmos DB supports encryption at rest and in transit, integrates with Key Vault, and can be deployed using private endpoints to isolate traffic.

Option B (SQL Database) supports geo-replication but cannot handle multi-region writes natively, limiting its suitability for real-time IoT telemetry. Option C (PostgreSQL) lacks multi-region write support and requires additional configuration for distributed workloads. Option D (Table Storage) provides basic key-value storage but does not support low-latency, globally distributed writes, and is insufficient for real-time IoT scenarios.

From an AZ-305 perspective, Cosmos DB exemplifies the design of highly available, resilient, and globally distributed data architectures, fulfilling objectives such as low-latency access, automatic scaling, and integration with serverless workflows. Enterprises can process telemetry in real-time, generate insights, and maintain operational efficiency without managing infrastructure manually.

Question 96

A company wants to deploy a globally distributed web application that requires low-latency access, automatic failover, and integrated application-layer security. Which combination of Azure services is most suitable?

Answer

A) Azure Front Door with Web Application Firewall
B) Azure Load Balancer and Traffic Manager
C) Azure Application Gateway with VPN Gateway
D) Azure CDN and Bastion

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Front Door with Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Azure Front Door is a global, scalable, and secure entry point for web applications. It provides Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) global load balancing with automatic failover, ensuring that traffic is routed to the closest healthy backend region. This guarantees low-latency access for users worldwide.

The integrated WAF provides application-layer security, protecting against common threats such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities. By centralizing traffic management and security at the edge, enterprises reduce operational complexity and can enforce consistent policies globally.

Option B (Load Balancer + Traffic Manager) provides regional load balancing and DNS-based routing but does not deliver application-layer security, SSL offloading, or real-time failover. Option C (Application Gateway + VPN Gateway) is regional and primarily provides internal load balancing and secure connectivity, lacking global routing. Option D (CDN + Bastion) accelerates static content delivery and provides secure VM access, but does not handle global traffic failover or dynamic content.

By using Front Door with WAF, enterprises achieve:

Global high availability through multi-region failover.

Low-latency access via intelligent routing to nearest backends.

Security at the application layer with preconfigured and customizable WAF rules.

Centralized SSL/TLS offloading, reducing backend workload.

Integration with monitoring and diagnostics, providing insights into traffic, threats, and performance.

From an AZ-305 perspective, this architecture aligns with designing highly available, secure, and globally distributed web applications, optimizing performance, resiliency, and security while minimizing operational overhead.

Question 97

A company wants to implement a serverless API that reacts to HTTP requests, queue messages, and database triggers with automatic scaling. Which service should they select?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is a serverless compute platform that allows code execution in response to events without requiring server management. It automatically scales based on demand, making it ideal for applications where workload patterns are unpredictable.

Triggers supported by Azure Functions include:

HTTP triggers: for RESTful APIs or webhooks.

Queue triggers: for asynchronous processing from Azure Storage Queues or Service Bus.

Database triggers: for reacting to changes in Azure SQL Database or Cosmos DB.

This approach allows enterprises to implement event-driven workflows efficiently, reducing costs and operational overhead. Functions can also integrate with Key Vault for secure secrets management, Application Insights for telemetry, and Durable Functions for orchestrating long-running processes.

Option B (VMs) requires manual scaling and management, which increases operational overhead. Option C (AKS) introduces orchestration complexity for lightweight event-driven workloads. Option D (Dedicated App Service) does not provide true serverless auto-scaling, making it less cost-efficient.

From an AZ-305 perspective, Azure Functions aligns with objectives of scalable, resilient, and secure serverless architectures, enabling enterprises to deploy event-driven APIs efficiently while maintaining observability and compliance.

Question 98

A company needs a globally distributed NoSQL database for an IoT telemetry system with low-latency reads and multi-region writes. Which service is most appropriate?

Answer

A) Azure Cosmos DB
B) Azure SQL Database
C) Azure Database for PostgreSQL
D) Azure Table Storage

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Cosmos DB.

Azure Cosmos DB is designed for globally distributed, low-latency, high-throughput workloads. For IoT telemetry, devices generate continuous streams of data that must be ingested and processed in real-time across multiple regions. Cosmos DB supports multi-region writes, allowing simultaneous updates globally without bottlenecks.

It provides five consistency models—strong, bounded staleness, session, consistent prefix, and eventual—allowing architects to balance latency and data consistency. Cosmos DB scales elastically to accommodate spikes in traffic, making it ideal for IoT scenarios where data ingestion patterns are unpredictable.

Integration with Azure Functions, Event Grid, and Stream Analytics enables real-time processing and workflow automation, while telemetry data can be sent to Power BI or Synapse Analytics for visualization and analysis. Cosmos DB also supports encryption at rest and in transit, private endpoints, and integration with Key Vault, ensuring compliance and security.

Other options are less suitable:

SQL Database does not support multi-region writes natively, limiting low-latency write operations.

PostgreSQL lacks built-in global replication for high-throughput IoT telemetry.

Table Storage cannot handle complex queries or low-latency multi-region writes, limiting operational effectiveness.

From an AZ-305 perspective, Cosmos DB demonstrates highly available, scalable, and resilient database architecture, capable of supporting mission-critical IoT applications with real-time processing, operational efficiency, and secure data handling.

Question 99

A company is designing a multi-tier application requiring secure secrets management, automatic scaling, and high availability for the database layer. Which architecture should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant
B) Azure Virtual Machines, SQL Server, and Storage Account
C) Azure Kubernetes Service with PostgreSQL single instance
D) Azure Functions with Cosmos DB

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure App Service, Key Vault, and Azure SQL Database zone-redundant.

In multi-tier applications, the presentation, business logic, and database layers must be designed for scalability, high availability, and security. Azure App Service provides managed hosting, supports automatic scaling, and allows deployment slots for zero-downtime updates.

Key Vault centralizes the management of secrets, certificates, and keys, integrating with managed identities to provide secure access to the App Service and SQL Database. Azure SQL Database configured with zone redundancy ensures resilient database operations, automatic failover, and high availability across availability zones.

Option B requires manual setup and management of operating systems, patches, clustering, and failover. Option C lacks built-in high availability for the database. Option D is serverless, suitable for stateless applications but less ideal for relational multi-tier workloads requiring ACID compliance.

This architecture aligns with AZ-305 objectives by delivering a scalable, secure, and highly available multi-tier application, reducing operational overhead while meeting enterprise-grade disaster recovery, security, and compliance requirements.

Question 100

A company wants to deploy a serverless event-driven API that automatically reacts to HTTP requests, storage events, and message queues, scaling dynamically with demand. Which service should they implement?

Answer

A) Azure Functions
B) Azure Virtual Machines
C) Azure Kubernetes Service
D) Azure App Service Plan (Dedicated)

Explanation

The correct answer is A) Azure Functions.

Azure Functions is a serverless compute platform that executes code in response to events. It supports HTTP triggers, Blob storage triggers, and queue messages, making it ideal for event-driven APIs and workflows. Functions automatically scale based on workload demand, ensuring high responsiveness and cost efficiency.

Security is enhanced through Key Vault integration and managed identities, while observability is provided via Application Insights, enabling developers to monitor latency, errors, and throughput. Durable Functions allow orchestration of long-running workflows, fan-out/fan-in patterns, and complex multi-step processes.

Option B (VMs) requires manual scaling and infrastructure management, which is not efficient for serverless workloads. Option C (AKS) introduces orchestration complexity and is overkill for simple event-driven APIs. Option D (Dedicated App Service) lacks true serverless elasticity, limiting responsiveness and cost efficiency.

From an AZ-305 perspective, Azure Functions exemplifies serverless, scalable, and resilient architecture design, enabling enterprises to implement dynamic, event-driven workflows efficiently while maintaining security, observability, and compliance with enterprise standards.