An Azure SQL Database must keep serving requests if an entire datacenter fails within one region, and the team does not want to build any replicas by hand. Which configuration provides this?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
A zone-redundant configuration places the database's replicas across multiple availability zones in a region, so the service keeps running if one zone's datacenter fails. Failover is automatic and managed by the service. Backups support recovery from data loss rather than instant failover, log shipping is a manual setup, and a read-only copy does not provide automatic failover on its own.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Backups protect against corruption and accidental deletion, but restoring takes time. They do not keep the database running through a datacenter failure.
- B. Manual log shipping requires the team to build, monitor and fail over a standby server. It is not automatic and does not meet the no-manual-setup requirement.
- D. A read-only replica can serve queries, but without an automatic failover arrangement it does not keep writes available through a zone failure.