Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure (AZ-204) Practice Exam

Which Azure Storage option is most suitable for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving?

1. Azure Disk Storage

2. Azure Files Storage

3. Azure Blob Storage

4. Azure Table Storage

The correct answer is: Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is particularly well-suited for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving due to its design and capabilities. It offers a highly scalable object storage solution that can handle large amounts of unstructured data, making it ideal for storing backups and archives. Blob Storage provides several tiers (Hot, Cool, and Archive) that allow users to optimize costs based on how frequently the data needs to be accessed. For instance, the Archive tier is specifically designed for data that is rarely accessed, which is typical for backup and long-term archival scenarios. This tier offers significant cost savings for data that does not require immediate retrieval. Additionally, Azure Blob Storage features robust redundancy options, ensuring that data is safe and can be recovered in case of failure, which aligns perfectly with the needs of disaster recovery solutions. The ability to easily replicate data across regions further enhances data resilience. In contrast, while Azure Disk Storage is primarily used for virtual machine storage, Azure Files provides file shares in the cloud but is not as optimized for the low-cost, long-term storage needs of backups. Azure Table Storage is designed for structured NoSQL data, making it less suitable for backup and archival purposes. Therefore, Azure Blob Storage stands out as the most effective choice for these requirements.