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CCSP Practice Question: A cloud architect is designing a disaster…
A cloud architect is designing a disaster recovery plan for a financial application with RTO of 15 minutes and RPO of 5 minutes. Which recovery strategy is most appropriate?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the distinction between RTO and RPO by presenting a scenario where candidates confuse warm standby (which can meet a low RTO but not a tight RPO) with active-active, leading them to choose warm standby despite its inability to guarantee the 5-minute RPO.
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
✓
Multi-region active-active
Multi-region active-active is the only strategy that can meet both a 15-minute RTO and a 5-minute RPO because it maintains synchronous or near-synchronous replication between two or more regions, allowing traffic to be instantly redirected with zero or minimal data loss. This approach eliminates the recovery time needed to spin up infrastructure or restore data, as the application is already fully operational in multiple regions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Multi-region active-active
Why this is correct
Multi-region active-active keeps synchronised replicas serving traffic in multiple regions simultaneously, so failover is near-instant and data loss stays within seconds. This meets the 15-minute RTO and 5-minute RPO, which warm standby or backup-restore strategies cannot reliably achieve.
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Backup and restore
Why it's wrong here
Backup and restore typically yields recovery times measured in hours and restore points from the last backup, breaching both the 15-minute RTO and 5-minute RPO. It is tempting because it is inexpensive and simple; it would be correct for non-critical workloads tolerating long outages and substantial data loss.
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Pilot light
Why it's wrong here
A pilot light keeps only core services running, so full provisioning and data synchronisation on failover usually exceeds 15 minutes and can lose more than 5 minutes of data. It is tempting because it lowers cost while maintaining a standby core; it would suit looser RTO and RPO targets.
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Warm standby
Why it's wrong here
Warm standby runs a scaled-down but functional copy, yet scaling up and switching traffic often exceeds the 15-minute RTO, and asynchronous replication may breach the 5-minute RPO. It is tempting as a middle-cost compromise; it would fit moderate recovery targets rather than these tight financial ones.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CCSP 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 CCSP exam.