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CV0-004 Practice Question: Is tasked with setting up a disaster recovery…
A cloud engineer is tasked with setting up a disaster recovery (DR) plan for a critical application that runs on virtual machines in a private cloud. The DR site is a public cloud. The application requires low recovery time objective (RTO) of less than 15 minutes and recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 5 minutes. Which of the following replication strategies BEST meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is choosing synchronous replication for the lowest RPO without considering WAN latency and performance impact — the exam expects recognition that synchronous replication is unsuitable for cross-cloud DR.
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
✓
Use continuous asynchronous replication to the DR site.
Continuous asynchronous replication replicates data changes to the DR site with minimal lag (often seconds), meeting an RPO of under 5 minutes while allowing recovery within the 15-minute RTO. It is the standard approach for cross-cloud DR where synchronous replication is impractical due to WAN latency. This strategy balances low RPO/RTO with the realities of replicating from a private cloud to a public cloud.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Replicate virtual machine images to the DR site daily.
Why it's wrong here
Daily image replication yields an RPO of up to 24 hours, far exceeding the 5-minute requirement, and booting images adds recovery time. It is tempting because image replication is simple and cheap for non-critical workloads tolerating long RPO, but here continuous data replication is needed.
- ✗
Use synchronous replication to keep data identical.
Why it's wrong here
Synchronous replication requires both sites to acknowledge each write, and cross-cloud latency between a private cloud and a public cloud makes sub-5-minute RPO achievable only by stalling production I/O. It is tempting because synchronous replication gives zero data loss for short-distance, low-latency links.
- ✗
Configure agent-based backup to the DR site every 5 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Agent-based backup captures point-in-time copies, so a five-minute schedule still leaves gaps and restore typically exceeds 15 minutes, breaching both RTO and RPO. It is tempting because frequent backups are cheap and simple, and this would suit workloads tolerating hours of data loss rather than near-continuous replication.
- ✓
Use continuous asynchronous replication to the DR site.
Why this is correct
Continuous asynchronous replication ships every write to the public cloud DR site within seconds, keeping data loss inside the five-minute RPO while virtual machines stay powered off until failover. Recovery completes well under fifteen minutes because replicas are already current, satisfying both the low RTO and RPO constraints.
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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
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