CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ (CLO-002)Management and Technical OperationsMedium

A cloud architect is designing a disaster recovery solution for a critical application that must have minimal downtime and minimal data loss. The current Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is 1 hour, and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is 4 hours. However, the business now mandates an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 30 minutes. Which of the following strategies, when combined, would best achieve these new, more stringent requirements?

  1. AHourly database snapshots and warm standby in a different region.
  2. BContinuous data replication and active-active deployment across multiple regions.
  3. CDaily backups to tape storage and manual restoration.
  4. DWeekly full backups to object storage and cold standby in the same region.
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B. Continuous data replication and active-active deployment across multiple regions.

Continuous data replication minimizes RPO to near zero by constantly syncing data, and an active-active deployment provides immediate failover with minimal RTO by having both sites fully operational and serving traffic simultaneously.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Hourly snapshots meet the 15-minute RPO, but warm standby might not meet the 30-minute RTO for full recovery.
  • C. Daily backups and manual restoration would result in RPO/RTO far exceeding the new requirements.
  • D. Weekly backups and cold standby would lead to very high RPO and RTO, failing to meet the requirements.

Active-Active Disaster Recovery

A disaster recovery strategy where two or more sites are simultaneously active, processing requests and serving traffic, providing near-zero RTO and RPO.

  • Both sites are fully operational.
  • Traffic is distributed between sites.
  • Offers highest availability and lowest RTO/RPO.

Memory trick: Faster recovery means more active, more replication.

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