Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)Cloud Security OperationsHard
A cloud security team is establishing a robust Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan for a critical application hosted on a public cloud IaaS platform. The application uses a relational database that processes high transaction volumes. The RPO (Recovery Point Objective) for this database is extremely stringent, requiring minimal data loss (measured in seconds). Which data replication strategy would best meet this RPO requirement?
- AAsynchronous replication to a secondary region
- BWeekly full database dumps
- CSynchronous replication to a secondary availability zone
- DDaily snapshot backups to object storage
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Synchronous replication to a secondary availability zone
Synchronous replication ensures that data is written to both the primary and secondary locations simultaneously before a transaction is committed. This guarantees zero or near-zero data loss, meeting an RPO measured in seconds. While it introduces higher latency, it's essential for extremely stringent RPO requirements for high-transaction databases.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Asynchronous replication allows for some data loss (minutes to hours) as data is replicated after the primary write, making it unsuitable for extremely stringent RPOs.
- B. Weekly full dumps would result in significant data loss (up to 7 days), completely failing to meet a stringent RPO.
- D. Daily snapshots would result in up to 24 hours of data loss, far exceeding an RPO measured in seconds.
Synchronous Replication
A data replication method where data is written to both primary and secondary locations simultaneously, ensuring near-zero data loss.
- Achieves very low RPO (seconds or zero).
- Introduces higher latency than asynchronous replication.
- Often used for critical data requiring high consistency.
Memory trick: Synchronize your data quickly to avoid any data loss.