Professional Cloud ArchitectAnalyze and optimize technical and business processesHard
A global manufacturing company wants to implement a robust disaster recovery (DR) strategy for its critical applications hosted on Google Cloud. The primary objective is to achieve a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 4 hours and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 1 hour. Their applications primarily use Compute Engine instances and Cloud SQL databases. Which DR approach aligns best with these objectives?
- AWarm Standby deployment to a different region.
- BBackup and Restore to a different region.
- CPilot Light deployment to a different region.
- DHot Standby (Active-Active) deployment across regions.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Warm Standby deployment to a different region.
A Warm Standby deployment typically involves having a scaled-down, but fully functional, replica of the production environment in a secondary region. This allows for faster recovery than backup and restore or pilot light, enabling RTOs of hours and RPOs of minutes to an hour, which aligns well with the given objectives.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Backup and Restore has the highest RTO and RPO, typically taking many hours to days to recover, which does not meet the specified objectives.
- C. Pilot Light involves deploying only core components and data, requiring more effort and time to scale up the environment during a disaster, resulting in an RTO that is usually higher than 4 hours.
- D. Hot Standby (Active-Active) provides the lowest RTO and RPO (near zero), but it is the most complex and expensive to implement and might be overkill for the specified RTO of 'less than 4 hours', making Warm Standby a more balanced choice for the given requirements.
Disaster Recovery (DR) Strategies
Approaches for recovering IT systems and data after a disaster, characterized by Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
- Backup and Restore: High RTO/RPO, lowest cost.
- Pilot Light: Lower RTO/RPO than backup, moderate cost.
- Warm Standby: Low RTO/RPO, higher cost.
- Hot Standby (Active-Active): Near-zero RTO/RPO, highest cost.
Memory trick: RTO and RPO define your DR's speed and data loss tolerance.