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Difficulty: MediumDesign Relational Database HA and DR

A logistics company is designing a disaster recovery solution for an application database. The database is currently hosted on Azure SQL Managed Instance. The solution must meet the following requirements:
- Support automatic failover to a secondary region.
- Provide a single connection endpoint for read-write traffic and a separate endpoint that automatically routes read-only reporting queries to the secondary region.
- Keep the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) under 5 seconds.
- Ensure all replication traffic between the primary and secondary instances remains within a private network boundary.

Which solution should you recommend?

  1. An Azure SQL Managed Instance Failover Group deployed across peered virtual networks, utilizing the read-only listener endpoint for reporting.Answer
  2. B
    Active geo-replication configured for the Azure SQL Managed Instance, utilizing the secondary replica's direct endpoint with public IP routing for reporting.
  3. C
    An Azure SQL Database Elastic Pool with active geo-replication, using public service endpoints to route read-only queries to the secondary region.
  4. D
    SQL Server Always On Availability Groups deployed on Azure Virtual Machines using Standard HDD drives for transaction logs, with read-only routing configured.

Answer

An Azure SQL Managed Instance Failover Group deployed across peered virtual networks, utilizing the read-only listener endpoint for reporting.
The correct solution uses an Azure SQL Managed Instance Failover Group configured across peered virtual networks. Failover Groups support automatic failover, meet the low RPO, and provide two distinct listener endpoints (read-write and read-only). The read-only endpoint automatically routes reporting traffic to the secondary instance, while virtual network peering ensures that all replication traffic remains secure and private.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the source database service model and HA/DR capabilities.
The workload runs on Azure SQL Managed Instance. This service supports Failover Groups for cross-region disaster recovery and automatic failover, but does not support Active Geo-Replication.
Choosing the correct replication feature is critical since features vary between Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
2
Verify read-scale requirements and routing.
Failover Groups provide a read-write listener and a read-only listener. The read-only listener automatically routes traffic to the secondary replica without needing connection string changes in the main application.
This satisfies the requirement to route reporting queries to the secondary region using a dedicated endpoint.
3
Determine the network security configuration.
Configuring virtual network peering between the virtual networks hosting the primary and secondary Managed Instances allows private traffic routing over the Azure backbone.
This satisfies the security requirement to keep replication traffic within a private network boundary.

Key Concept

Azure SQL Managed Instance Failover Groups
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Topics

Design Relational Database HA and DR

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