This CV0-004 practice question tests your understanding of cloud architecture and design. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A cloud architect is planning a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for a mission-critical application. The RTO must be under 1 hour and RPO under 15 minutes. The primary site is in a different region. Which DR pattern meets these requirements?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Backup and restore
Why wrong: Backup and restore typically has RTO of hours to days.
Cold standby
Why wrong: Cold standby requires provisioning resources from scratch, leading to long RTO.
Pilot light
Pilot light keeps minimal resources running and can scale up quickly to meet RTO/RPO.
Multi-site active-active
Why wrong: Active-active offers near-zero RTO but is more expensive and may not be necessary.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Pilot light
The pilot light pattern meets the RTO under 1 hour and RPO under 15 minutes because it keeps a minimal core set of services (e.g., database replicating via asynchronous replication) running in the DR region, allowing rapid scale-up of the full application stack during failover. This pattern balances cost and recovery speed, as the replicated data ensures an RPO of seconds to minutes, and the pre-provisioned core infrastructure enables failover within minutes, satisfying the strict RTO.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Backup and restore
Why it's wrong here
Backup and restore typically has RTO of hours to days.
Cold standby
Why it's wrong here
Cold standby requires provisioning resources from scratch, leading to long RTO.
Pilot light
Why this is correct
Pilot light keeps minimal resources running and can scale up quickly to meet RTO/RPO.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Multi-site active-active
Why it's wrong here
Active-active offers near-zero RTO but is more expensive and may not be necessary.
Common exam traps
CompTIA often tests the misconception that 'pilot light' is only for low-criticality apps, but the trap here is that candidates confuse it with cold standby, failing to recognize that pilot light's pre-provisioned core and continuous replication can meet strict RTO/RPO targets without the cost of full active-active.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, the pilot light pattern leverages continuous database replication (e.g., using AWS RDS Multi-AZ or cross-region read replicas with MySQL asynchronous replication) to maintain a hot copy of critical data in the DR region. During failover, the 'pilot light' (a small stack of core services like DNS, load balancers, and a minimal compute instance) is scaled out using auto-scaling groups and pre-baked AMIs, often achieving failover in 10-30 minutes. A real-world scenario is a financial trading application where the primary region fails; the pilot light in a secondary region spins up full capacity within 20 minutes, meeting the RTO while keeping costs low compared to active-active.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A small business has 20 workstations on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and one public IP from its ISP. The router uses PAT (NAT overload) so all 20 devices share one public address using different source ports. NAT questions test whether you understand the four address terms and which direction each translation applies.
What to study next
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FAQ
Cloud Architecture and Design — This question tests Cloud Architecture and Design — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Pilot light — The pilot light pattern meets the RTO under 1 hour and RPO under 15 minutes because it keeps a minimal core set of services (e.g., database replicating via asynchronous replication) running in the DR region, allowing rapid scale-up of the full application stack during failover. This pattern balances cost and recovery speed, as the replicated data ensures an RPO of seconds to minutes, and the pre-provisioned core infrastructure enables failover within minutes, satisfying the strict RTO.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
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.
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