Design a highly available Azure SQL Database that requires failover with no data loss, availability during a zone outage, and minimized cost. Which deployment option should you choose?
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Correct answer: Azure SQL Database Business Critical.
Why this is the answer
Azure SQL Database Business Critical tier provides high availability with a multi-replica architecture, ensuring no data loss on failover and zone redundancy for availability during zone outages. Its four replicas (one primary, three secondaries) across different availability zones allow for automatic failover with minimal downtime and RPO of zero. This option is generally more cost-effective than Azure SQL Managed Instance for a single database, as Managed Instance incurs additional costs for the underlying infrastructure and instance-level features which are not explicitly requested here. Azure SQL Database Standard offers high availability but typically uses a single replica with local storage, making it vulnerable to zone outages and potentially incurring data loss during failover. Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose also lacks zone redundancy and has a higher RPO than Business Critical tiers.
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