Question 14
Domain 2: Design Resilient ArchitecturesA company wants to implement a disaster recovery solution for their production database. They can tolerate a 1-hour data loss (RPO) and 4-hour recovery time (RTO). Which DR strategy is MOST cost-effective?
Correct answer: C
Explanation
Pilot light keeps only the core database components running, while the rest is started during recovery, making it cheaper than warm standby or multi-site. It fits a modest recovery target because the strategy supports faster restoration than backup-and-restore while avoiding the cost of fully active duplicate systems.
Why each option is right or wrong
A. Multi-site active-active
B. Warm standby
C. Pilot light
AWS disaster recovery patterns are commonly evaluated against RPO/RTO tradeoffs: backup-and-restore is cheapest but usually cannot meet a 1-hour RPO and 4-hour RTO for a production database, while warm standby and multi-site active/active are progressively more expensive because they keep more infrastructure running. A pilot light keeps only the critical database core available and can be expanded during failover, which is the lowest-cost option that still fits a modest 1-hour data-loss window and a 4-hour restoration target.
D. Backup and restore