CV0-004 Cloud Architecture and Design Practice Question
A cloud administrator is designing a backup strategy for a critical database. The recovery point objective (RPO) is 15 minutes, and the recovery time objective (RTO) is 1 hour. Which backup approach BEST meets these objectives?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse high availability within a zone with disaster recovery, when only continuous replication to a separate location can meet a tight RPO.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable continuous transaction log shipping to a standby database in another availability zone.
Continuous transaction log shipping provides near-real-time replication, ensuring that the standby database is always up to date. This achieves an RPO of minutes or less, well within the 15-minute requirement. In the event of a failure, the standby can be promoted quickly, meeting the 1-hour RTO. Daily or hourly backups are too infrequent for the RPO, and single-zone redundancy does not provide disaster recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Take a full backup once a day and store it in a different region.
Why it's wrong here
A daily full backup results in an RPO of up to 24 hours, which far exceeds the 15-minute requirement. If a failure occurs, up to a day's worth of transactions could be lost. While storing the backup in a different region improves durability, it does not address the frequent recovery point needed. This approach does not meet the RPO.
- ✓
Enable continuous transaction log shipping to a standby database in another availability zone.
Why this is correct
Continuous transaction log shipping replicates every committed transaction to a standby database, achieving an RPO of near zero or within minutes. If the primary fails, the standby can be promoted, and recovery time is typically well under an hour. This meets both the 15-minute RPO and the 1-hour RTO, providing a robust disaster recovery solution.
- ✗
Take a snapshot every hour and copy it to object storage.
Why it's wrong here
Hourly snapshots provide an RPO of up to 60 minutes, which exceeds the 15-minute requirement. If a failure occurs just before a snapshot, up to an hour of data could be lost. While copying to object storage improves durability, the recovery time might also be longer due to the need to restore from a snapshot. This approach does not meet the RPO.
- ✗
Rely on the cloud provider's built-in redundancy within a single availability zone.
Why it's wrong here
Built-in redundancy within a single availability zone protects against hardware failures but not against zone-level outages or data corruption. It does not provide a recovery point objective because it is not a backup; it is replication for availability. If the zone fails, the data may be unavailable, and there is no independent copy to restore from, violating both RPO and RTO.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
This CV0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CV0-004 exam.