SSCP Incident Response and Recovery Practice Question
An organization's disaster recovery plan specifies an RTO of 4 hours and an RPO of 1 hour for its critical database. Which of the following DR site configurations BEST meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to choose a hot site (Option C) because it provides the best protection, but the question asks for the configuration that BEST meets the specified RTO/RPO, not the most robust or expensive option, making the warm site the most cost-effective and appropriate choice.
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
✓
Warm site with hourly log shipping to a standby database
A warm site with hourly log shipping to a standby database can achieve an RPO of 1 hour (by losing at most one hour of transactions) and an RTO of 4 hours (by applying the logs and bringing the standby online within that window). The standby database is kept nearly current with minimal lag, meeting both recovery objectives without the cost of full synchronous replication.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Cold site with weekly backup tapes shipped offsite
Why it's wrong here
Cold sites have no equipment and require long setup; weekly backups would not meet 1-hour RPO.
- ✗
Cloud-based cold site with daily backups
Why it's wrong here
Daily backups exceed 1-hour RPO; cold site does not meet RTO.
- ✗
Hot site with synchronous replication
Why it's wrong here
A hot site is more costly than necessary; synchronous replication would meet RPO but is overkill for 1-hour RPO.
- ✓
Warm site with hourly log shipping to a standby database
Why this is correct
Hourly log shipping achieves RPO of 1 hour; warm site provides hardware ready for activation within hours, meeting RTO.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SSCP 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 SSCP exam.