CompTIA DataSys+ (DS0-001)Business ContinuityHard
A financial institution's database system requires an RTO of 30 minutes and an RPO of 0 (zero data loss). The current backup strategy involves daily full backups and hourly incremental backups, stored offsite. A recent business impact analysis indicated that the current strategy might not meet the RPO of 0. Which change to the disaster recovery infrastructure would most directly address the RPO requirement?
- ASwitching from incremental backups to differential backups.
- BDeploying a synchronous replication solution between primary and standby databases.
- CIncreasing the frequency of full backups to twice daily.
- DImplementing faster network links to the offsite backup location.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Deploying a synchronous replication solution between primary and standby databases.
An RPO of 0 (zero data loss) implies that no transactions should be lost during a disaster. Synchronous replication is the only option that guarantees this by ensuring that data is committed to both the primary and a replica before the transaction is considered complete. Backups, whether full, incremental, or differential, always have a time gap between the last backup and the failure, meaning some data loss is inherent.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Differential backups might reduce restore time (RTO) but still introduce a data loss window, as they are not real-time.
- C. Increasing full backup frequency would reduce the RPO, but it cannot achieve an RPO of 0 as there will always be a time lag between backups.
- D. Faster network links primarily affect RTO (recovery time) and backup transfer speed, not RPO (data loss).
Zero RPO Strategy
Achieving an RPO of 0 (zero data loss) typically requires real-time data synchronization solutions like synchronous replication or stretched clusters.
- RPO=0 means no data loss is acceptable.
- Backups alone cannot achieve RPO=0.
- Synchronous replication is a key technology for RPO=0.
Memory trick: To lose zero, you must replicate in 'Sync'.