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
Weekly tape shipments give an RPO of up to seven days, far exceeding the one-hour target, and rebuilding a cold site cannot meet a four-hour RTO. Cold sites are tempting for their low cost, but they suit scenarios with relaxed recovery objectives measured in days.
- ✗
Cloud-based cold site with daily backups
Why it's wrong here
Daily backups yield an RPO of up to 24 hours, breaching the one-hour requirement, and provisioning a cold site from scratch rarely fits a four-hour RTO. Cloud cold sites are tempting for cheap resilience, but they suit longer recovery windows.
- ✗
Hot site with synchronous replication
Why it's wrong here
Synchronous replication gives an RPO near zero, exceeding the one-hour requirement while adding latency and cost; a hot site with asynchronous replication meets both targets. Synchronous replication is tempting for its minimal data loss, but it is intended where RPO is effectively zero.
- ✓
Warm site with hourly log shipping to a standby database
Why this is correct
Hourly log shipping to a standby database delivers an RPO of roughly one hour, and a warm site can be brought online within the four-hour RTO. Hot sites exceed the requirement at unnecessary cost, while cold sites cannot meet either target.
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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.