CDIA Storage Solutions 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which storage characteristic is most critical when selecting a system for real-time document retrieval in a high-traffic enterprise environment?
- Maximum storage capacity
- Low latency and high IOPS (Correct answer)
- Support for tape media formats
- Number of supported file formats
Correct answer: Low latency and high IOPS
Real-time retrieval in high-traffic environments demands low access latency and high IOPS to ensure users receive documents quickly without queuing delays.
Question 2: What is 'storage virtualization' in the context of an enterprise document management system?
- Simulating storage behavior in a test environment without real hardware
- Abstracting physical storage resources into a single logical pool manageable as one unit (Correct answer)
- Converting physical documents into virtual digital formats
- Creating virtual folders without actual files for organizational purposes
Correct answer: Abstracting physical storage resources into a single logical pool manageable as one unit
Storage virtualization abstracts heterogeneous physical storage hardware into a unified logical pool, simplifying management and enabling seamless capacity expansion.
Question 3: For long-term digital preservation of archival documents, which file format and storage combination is generally recommended?
- Proprietary vendor format on SSD storage
- PDF/A on WORM-compliant storage with checksum validation (Correct answer)
- JPEG on rotating HDD with weekly backups
- DOC format on network file shares with version control
Correct answer: PDF/A on WORM-compliant storage with checksum validation
PDF/A is the ISO-standardized archival format, and pairing it with WORM storage and checksum validation ensures both format integrity and protection against alteration.
Question 4: What is 'storage replication' and how does it differ from backup in a document imaging system?
- Replication copies documents to print; backup stores digital files
- Replication continuously mirrors live data to another location; backup creates periodic point-in-time copies (Correct answer)
- Replication compresses data for archiving; backup decompresses for retrieval
- Replication is for local storage only; backup is always cloud-based
Correct answer: Replication continuously mirrors live data to another location; backup creates periodic point-in-time copies
Replication provides continuous or near-real-time synchronization of live data to a secondary site, while backup captures periodic snapshots that may lag behind current state.
Question 5: A company stores 50 million document images that are accessed less than once per year on average. Which storage approach is most cost-effective?
- All-flash SSD array with 99.9999% uptime SLA
- Tiered cold/archive storage such as tape or cloud glacier-class storage (Correct answer)
- On-premises NAS with RAID 6 redundancy
- Replicated SAN with synchronous mirroring
Correct answer: Tiered cold/archive storage such as tape or cloud glacier-class storage
Cold or archive storage tiers like tape or cloud glacier-class services offer the lowest cost per GB for rarely accessed data where retrieval speed is not critical.
Question 6: In a document imaging RFP, a vendor claims their system offers 'five nines' availability. What does this mean?
- The system supports five simultaneous users
- The system guarantees 99.999% uptime, allowing approximately 5 minutes of downtime per year (Correct answer)
- The storage system uses five redundant power supplies
- The vendor provides five years of warranty coverage
Correct answer: The system guarantees 99.999% uptime, allowing approximately 5 minutes of downtime per year
'Five nines' (99.999%) availability translates to approximately 5.26 minutes of allowed downtime per year, representing an extremely high reliability standard.
Question 7: Which storage technology is best suited for near-line storage in a document imaging system where retrieval times of 30-90 seconds are acceptable?
- All-flash NVMe array
- Automated tape library (ATL) (Correct answer)
- In-memory cache
- Solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD)
Correct answer: Automated tape library (ATL)
Automated tape libraries provide robotic retrieval of tape cartridges within 30-90 seconds, making them ideal near-line storage where cost savings outweigh the need for instant access.
CDIA Storage Solutions 5
Which storage characteristic is most critical when selecting a system for real-time document retrieval in a high-traffic enterprise environment?