- A
Reciprocal agreement
Why wrong: May not guarantee availability and could have legal issues.
- B
Warm site
Why wrong: Requires hours to set up, but may not guarantee 4-hour recovery.
- C
Cold site
Why wrong: Requires days or weeks to bring online.
- D
Hot site
A hot site is immediately available and meets the RTO.
Question 527 of 1,000
CISSP Security Operations Practice Question
This CISSP practice question tests your understanding of security operations. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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.
An organization's disaster recovery plan specifies a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours for its critical financial application. Which disaster recovery site would be MOST appropriate to meet this 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
✓
Hot site
A hot site is fully configured with hardware, software, and real-time data replication, enabling the critical financial application to be operational within minutes to a few hours. With an RTO of 4 hours, a hot site provides the necessary infrastructure and up-to-date data to meet this stringent recovery timeline, as cold and warm sites require significant setup and data restoration time.
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.
- ✗
Reciprocal agreement
Why it's wrong here
May not guarantee availability and could have legal issues.
- ✗
Warm site
Why it's wrong here
Requires hours to set up, but may not guarantee 4-hour recovery.
- ✗
Cold site
Why it's wrong here
Requires days or weeks to bring online.
- ✓
Hot site
Why this is correct
A hot site is immediately available and meets the RTO.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse a warm site with a hot site, assuming pre-installed hardware is sufficient, but they overlook the critical need for current data replication to meet a tight RTO like 4 hours.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Hot sites achieve rapid recovery through synchronous or asynchronous data replication (e.g., using Oracle Data Guard or SQL Server Always On Availability Groups) and pre-configured failover clusters, often with automated DNS or load balancer redirection. In real-world scenarios, organizations may combine a hot site with continuous data protection (CDP) to achieve Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) of seconds, ensuring minimal data loss during failover. The 4-hour RTO implies that the application must be fully functional within that window, which typically requires pre-staged application servers, databases, and network configurations that are tested regularly.
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.
- →
Security Operations — study guide chapter
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Security Operations practice questions
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CISSP question test?
Security Operations — This question tests Security Operations — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Hot site — A hot site is fully configured with hardware, software, and real-time data replication, enabling the critical financial application to be operational within minutes to a few hours. With an RTO of 4 hours, a hot site provides the necessary infrastructure and up-to-date data to meet this stringent recovery timeline, as cold and warm sites require significant setup and data restoration time.
What should I do if I get this CISSP 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.
About these practice questions
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
This CISSP 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 CISSP exam.
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