SY0-701 Security Architecture Practice Question
A customer portal runs from a primary data center. Management wants the secondary site to take over within minutes if the primary site loses power, and the secondary site should already have current systems and data ready to serve users. Which design best fits this requirement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse a cold site with nightly backups as sufficient for rapid recovery, failing to recognize that the RTO of minutes requires pre-staged, synchronized systems and automated failover, not manual restoration from backups.
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
✓
A hot site with synchronized data replication and automated failover
A hot site with synchronized data replication and automated failover is the correct choice because it maintains an exact, real-time copy of systems and data at the secondary site. Synchronous replication ensures zero data loss (RPO=0), and automated failover enables the secondary site to become operational within minutes (RTO measured in minutes), meeting the requirement for immediate takeover after a power loss at the primary site.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A cold site with nightly backups stored offsite
Why it's wrong here
A cold site with nightly backups is a classic disaster recovery option, but it is unsuitable for failover-in-minutes because the site lacks pre-staged hardware, network, and application configuration. In addition, nightly backups mean an RPO of up to 24 hours, so you could lose a full day's data, and restoring that backup to bare metal takes hours or days, not minutes.
- ✓
A hot site with synchronized data replication and automated failover
Why this is correct
A hot site is already prepared to operate and can receive traffic quickly when the primary site fails. Synchronized replication keeps data current, and automated failover minimizes manual intervention and recovery time. This is the best match for a near-immediate continuity requirement.
- ✗
RAID 0 across two storage arrays in the primary data center
Why it's wrong here
RAID 0 across two storage arrays in the primary data center provides striping without parity or mirroring, so it actually increases the risk of data loss—if either disk in either array fails, the entire logical volume is lost. It also does nothing to protect against a site-wide outage, because both arrays reside in the same facility and are equally vulnerable to that failure.
- ✗
A single backup server with larger disks and more memory
Why it's wrong here
A single backup server, even with larger disks and more memory, is still a single point of failure physically located in the primary data center. It cannot sustain operations if the entire facility faces a power outage, network failure, or other site-level disaster. Furthermore, as a backup server, it is not pre-configured to serve live production traffic, so it adds no true high-availability capability.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Secure Network Design Principles
Key term
Business Continuity Planning
Business Continuity Planning is the process of creating a strategy to keep an organization's essential functions running during and after a major disruption.
Key term
RTO
Recovery Time Objective is the maximum acceptable time to restore a system or data after a disaster, defining how quickly normal operations must resume.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SY0-701 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 SY0-701 exam.