easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
CCSP Practice Question: A company uses an Infrastructure as a Service…
A company uses an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider for critical applications. They need to define a backup retention policy that meets regulatory requirements for keeping financial records for 7 years. Which of the following strategies best meets this requirement while optimizing costs?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the misconception that a simple rotation scheme (like grandfather-father-son) alone satisfies both retention and cost optimization, but the trap is that rotation schemes define retention cycles without addressing storage tiering or cold storage, which is essential for cost-effective long-term retention in the cloud.
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
✓
Perform daily backups, keep weekly backups for 3 months, monthly for 1 year, and yearly for 7 years in cold storage.
It implements a tiered backup retention strategy that aligns with the 7-year regulatory requirement while minimizing storage costs. By transitioning weekly backups to cold storage after 3 months, monthly backups after 1 year, and yearly backups for the full 7 years, the company reduces the cost of storing infrequently accessed data. This approach leverages the IaaS provider's lifecycle management policies (e.g., AWS S3 Lifecycle or Azure Blob Storage access tiers) to automatically move backups to lower-cost storage classes like Glacier or Archive, which are optimized for long-term retention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Perform daily full backups and retain all backups for 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
Retaining daily backups for 7 years is costly and often unnecessary.
- ✓
Perform daily backups, keep weekly backups for 3 months, monthly for 1 year, and yearly for 7 years in cold storage.
Why this is correct
This tiered retention reduces costs while meeting the 7-year requirement.
- ✗
Replicate all backups to a secondary region with snapshots kept for 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
Replication is for recovery, not archival; keeping all snapshots for 7 years is also costly.
- ✗
Use a grandfather-father-son rotation scheme with weekly, monthly, and yearly backups.
Why it's wrong here
Although common, this may not guarantee retention of all records for exactly 7 years without additional planning.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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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.