CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ (CLO-002)Management and Technical OperationsHard
A company is designing its cloud data backup strategy. They have critical application data that requires a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 hour and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours. Which backup and recovery approach is most appropriate to meet these requirements?
- ADaily full backups stored off-site with weekly restoration drills.
- BWeekly incremental backups with manual restoration procedures.
- CSnapshots taken every hour, replicated to a secondary region, with automated recovery scripts.
- DDatabase dumps performed every 24 hours to object storage.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Snapshots taken every hour, replicated to a secondary region, with automated recovery scripts.
An RPO of 1 hour means data loss must be limited to the last hour, which hourly snapshots satisfy. An RTO of 4 hours requires a fast recovery mechanism, which automated recovery scripts leveraging replicated snapshots to a secondary region can provide, significantly faster than manual or full backup restorations.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Daily backups violate the 1-hour RPO. Weekly drills don't guarantee a 4-hour RTO.
- B. Weekly incremental backups violate the 1-hour RPO and manual restoration procedures would likely exceed the 4-hour RTO.
- D. Daily database dumps violate the 1-hour RPO, and restoration from dumps can be time-consuming, potentially exceeding the 4-hour RTO.
RPO and RTO
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines the maximum acceptable downtime after a disaster.
- RPO is measured in time (e.g., 1 hour of data loss).
- RTO is measured in time (e.g., 4 hours to recover).
- Lower RPO/RTO typically means higher cost and complexity.
Memory trick: RPO is how much you lose, RTO is how long you snooze. Match your backups to what you choose.