easyMultiple Choice
CISA Practice Question: A medium-sized retail company relies on an ERP…
A medium-sized retail company relies on an ERP system for order processing and inventory management. The system is hosted on-premises with daily backups stored on tape. The company's business continuity plan specifies an RTO of 4 hours and an RPO of 1 hour for the ERP system. During a recent fire drill, it was discovered that restoring the ERP system from tape took over 6 hours, and the most recent backup was from the previous day. Which of the following is the BEST course of action to meet the RTO and RPO goals?
⚠ Common exam trap
CISA often tests the distinction between RTO and RPO — candidates frequently pick a backup-frequency fix (improves RPO only) when the scenario's real failure is restore speed (RTO).
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
✓
Implement a hot standby site with real-time replication.
The drill revealed two failures: restore time exceeded the 4-hour RTO, and the backup was a day old, missing the 1-hour RPO. A hot standby site with real-time replication addresses both — failover can occur within minutes (meeting RTO) and replication keeps data current to seconds (meeting RPO). This is the only option that closes both gaps simultaneously.
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 frequency of tape backups to every 30 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Thirty-minute tape backups narrow the RPO but leave the six-hour restore time unchanged, so the four-hour RTO still fails; tape streaming and rebuild remain the bottleneck. It is tempting because increasing backup frequency directly addresses the one-hour RPO, which would suffice if recovery speed were already adequate.
- ✗
Conduct quarterly fire drills instead of annually.
Why it's wrong here
More frequent drills only measure the existing restore process; they do not shorten the six-hour tape restoration or the one-day backup interval, so RTO and RPO remain unmet. It is tempting because testing validates the business continuity plan, which is correct for assurance once recovery capabilities already satisfy the targets.
- ✓
Implement a hot standby site with real-time replication.
Why this is correct
Real-time replication to a hot standby site satisfies both constraints simultaneously: continuous data mirroring delivers an RPO near zero, well inside the one-hour limit, while the standby's pre-installed ERP instance allows failover within minutes, meeting the four-hour RTO that tape restoration cannot.
- ✗
Replace tape backups with weekly cloud backups.
Why it's wrong here
Weekly cloud backups widen the RPO to seven days, far beyond the one-hour target, and restore time still depends on transferring and rebuilding the ERP. It is tempting because offsite cloud storage removes tape handling, which suits archival retention rather than four-hour recovery of an active transactional system.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
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