CCSP Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security Practice Question
This CCSP practice question tests your understanding of cloud platform and infrastructure security. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A cloud security engineer is designing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application running on virtual machines. The RTO is 4 hours and RPO is 1 hour. Which approach meets these requirements?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Keep a warm standby in another region with continuous data replication.
Option C meets both the RTO of 4 hours and RPO of 1 hour by maintaining a warm standby in another region with continuous data replication. Continuous replication ensures data is synchronized with minimal lag (well under 1 hour), and the warm standby VM can be activated quickly to meet the 4-hour RTO. This approach balances cost and recovery speed, as a warm standby is partially running and can be promoted to production faster than a cold standby.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Take daily snapshots and restore to a different region.
Why it's wrong here
Daily snapshots exceed the 1-hour RPO.
✗
Use synchronous replication to a secondary availability zone.
Why it's wrong here
Synchronous replication is expensive and may not cover regional failures.
✓
Keep a warm standby in another region with continuous data replication.
Why this is correct
Warm standby with continuous replication meets both RTO and RPO.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use asynchronous replication with a 1-hour lag to a secondary site.
Why it's wrong here
Asynchronous replication may still lose data, and RPO is not guaranteed.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
ISC2 often tests the distinction between RPO and RTO, and the trap here is that candidates confuse asynchronous replication with a 1-hour lag as meeting both requirements, overlooking that a cold standby without pre-provisioned compute cannot achieve a 4-hour RTO even if the data is available.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Warm standby architectures often use continuous replication technologies like AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) or Azure Site Recovery, which maintain a consistent copy of data with sub-minute RPOs. The standby environment is pre-configured with compute resources in a powered-off or minimal state, allowing failover in minutes to hours depending on the application. In contrast, synchronous replication (e.g., using DRBD or VMware vSAN stretched clusters) requires low-latency links (typically <5 ms RTT) and is limited to metro distances, making it unsuitable for cross-region DR where latency is higher.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A security analyst at a medium-sized enterprise encounters this scenario during an investigation or architecture review. The correct answer reflects best practice for the specific threat or control described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Security exam questions test whether you can match controls to threats in context — not just recall definitions.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security — This question tests Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Keep a warm standby in another region with continuous data replication. — Option C meets both the RTO of 4 hours and RPO of 1 hour by maintaining a warm standby in another region with continuous data replication. Continuous replication ensures data is synchronized with minimal lag (well under 1 hour), and the warm standby VM can be activated quickly to meet the 4-hour RTO. This approach balances cost and recovery speed, as a warm standby is partially running and can be promoted to production faster than a cold standby.
What should I do if I get this CCSP question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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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.
Question Discussion
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