ISC2 CC Practice Question: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response
A financial institution requires near-instantaneous recovery of its trading platform after a disaster. The recovery time objective (RTO) is 2 hours, and the recovery point objective (RPO) is 15 minutes. Which recovery site strategy best meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming a warm site is 'good enough' because it has some equipment; candidates must map the stated RTO/RPO to the site type that can actually meet those numbers.
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
✓
Hot site
A hot site is a fully operational duplicate of the primary data center with real-time or near-real-time data replication, allowing recovery within minutes. It is the only strategy that can meet an RTO of 2 hours and an RPO of 15 minutes for a trading platform. Hot sites are expensive but necessary for near-instantaneous recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reciprocal agreement
Why it's wrong here
A reciprocal agreement relies on another organisation's goodwill and untested capacity, giving no guaranteed 2-hour RTO or 15-minute RPO. It suits non-critical workloads with relaxed objectives, whereas this trading platform needs a warm standby with continuous replication.
- ✗
Warm site
Why it's wrong here
A warm site has hardware pre-installed but requires restoring data and reconfiguring systems, which typically exceeds the 2-hour RTO and cannot reliably deliver a 15-minute RPO. It fits scenarios with RTOs measured in days, where cost savings outweigh rapid recovery needs.
- ✗
Cold site
Why it's wrong here
A cold site provides only power and space, so hardware must be procured and systems rebuilt before recovery begins, exceeding the 2-hour RTO and offering no mechanism to meet a 15-minute RPO. It suits non-critical workloads where multi-day outages are tolerable and budget is the dominant constraint.
- ✓
Hot site
Why this is correct
A hot site provides a fully mirrored, continuously replicated environment, enabling activation well within the two-hour RTO while keeping data loss inside the fifteen-minute RPO. Warm and cold sites cannot meet such aggressive recovery targets.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 CC exam.