easyMultiple Choice
CV0-004 Practice Question: A cloud administrator is tasked with ensuring…
A cloud administrator is tasked with ensuring that a cloud database is backed up daily. The backup must be stored off-site for disaster recovery. Which of the following is the most cost-effective solution?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates mistakenly believe that snapshot replication is the cheapest DR method, but in reality, scheduled object storage backups are more cost-effective for daily off-site retention because snapshots replicate entire block-level changes and incur higher storage and transfer costs.
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
✓
Schedule a backup to an object storage bucket in a different region.
Scheduling a backup to an object storage bucket in a different region leverages cloud-native, pay-per-use storage (e.g., Amazon S3, Azure Blob, or Google Cloud Storage) with geo-redundancy. This eliminates the need for physical media or manual intervention, and cross-region replication provides off-site disaster recovery at minimal cost compared to tape or dedicated replication services.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Schedule a backup to an object storage bucket in a different region.
Why this is correct
Object storage in a separate region provides off-site durability at low cost, since object storage pricing is far cheaper than block or file tiers and cross-region replication satisfies the disaster recovery constraint without dedicated infrastructure.
- ✗
Perform a full backup to tape and store off-site.
Why it's wrong here
Tape requires physical media, courier handling and manual restore, so daily database dumps to tape incur operational cost and slow recovery, failing cost-effectiveness. Tape suits long-term archival retention with infrequent restores, not daily off-site disaster-recovery backups where rapid recovery within cloud storage is needed.
- ✗
Perform incremental backups to a local network share.
Why it's wrong here
A local network share remains on-site, so it does not satisfy the off-site disaster-recovery requirement even though incremental backups are cheap. Local shares suit fast LAN restores and operational rollback, not geographic separation from the primary database region.
- ✗
Use snapshot replication to a different region.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshot replication to another region duplicates full storage continuously, and cross-region data transfer plus retained snapshots raise cost beyond a scheduled export to object storage. Cross-region replication suits low-RPO, always-on resilience requirements, not a daily off-site backup where cost is the deciding constraint.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.