CV0-004 Operations and Support Practice Question
A cloud operations team is deploying a three-tier application across multiple availability zones. To meet a strict recovery time objective, they want the application to keep serving traffic if an entire availability zone becomes unavailable. Which TWO design actions should the team take? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is treating backup and protection features, such as snapshots or termination protection, as substitutes for high availability.
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
✓
Configure the database with a multi-AZ standby that can be promoted automatically.
High availability across zones requires both a resilient application tier and a resilient data tier. Running instances in multiple zones behind a load balancer keeps the application serving traffic, while a multi-AZ database with automatic failover keeps data available without a lengthy restore, together meeting the aggressive recovery time objective.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to handle the full production load on a single instance.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling up a single instance concentrates the workload in one availability zone. If that zone fails, the entire application becomes unavailable regardless of instance size, so vertical scaling does not address the zone-failure scenario or the recovery time objective.
- ✓
Configure the database with a multi-AZ standby that can be promoted automatically.
Why this is correct
A multi-AZ database keeps a synchronized standby in a separate zone and promotes it automatically during a zone failure. This removes the need to restore from backup, keeping database downtime within the recovery time objective and allowing the application tier to reconnect with minimal delay.
- ✓
Distribute application instances across at least two availability zones behind a load balancer.
Why this is correct
Spreading instances across multiple availability zones means that if one zone fails, the remaining zones still have healthy instances to serve requests. The load balancer routes traffic only to healthy targets, so capacity is preserved and the recovery time objective can be met without manual rebuilding.
- ✗
Take nightly snapshots of the database volumes and store them in a separate region.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots support recovery but require a restore process that can take far longer than the strict recovery time objective allows. They also leave a gap between the last snapshot and the failure, so they are a backup strategy rather than a high-availability design for a zone outage.
- ✗
Enable termination protection on all production instances.
Why it's wrong here
Termination protection only prevents accidental deletion of an instance through the API. It does not replicate data, provide standby capacity, or keep the application reachable when an availability zone is lost, so it adds no resilience against a zone-level outage.
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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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