CSA Emergency Preparedness & Safety 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A chemical spill occurs near the data center loading dock. Which OSHA standard primarily governs employee emergency response for hazardous substance releases?
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.119 (PSM)
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.120 (HAZWOPER) (Correct answer)
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147 (Lockout/Tagout)
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1030 (Bloodborne Pathogens)
Correct answer: OSHA 29 CFR 1910.120 (HAZWOPER)
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.120 (HAZWOPER) establishes requirements for emergency response operations involving hazardous substance releases.
Question 2: Which document formally authorizes disaster recovery operations to begin, typically signed by senior management?
- The System Security Plan (SSP)
- The Disaster Declaration (Correct answer)
- The Change Advisory Board (CAB) approval
- The Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
Correct answer: The Disaster Declaration
A formal Disaster Declaration, issued by authorized management, is required before initiating DR procedures to prevent premature or unauthorized failovers.
Question 3: An organization maintains its backup tapes at a facility located 2 miles from the primary data center. A regional earthquake affects both sites simultaneously. What backup strategy flaw does this illustrate?
- Insufficient backup frequency
- Inadequate geographic separation of backup media (Correct answer)
- Failure to use incremental backups
- Missing encryption on backup tapes
Correct answer: Inadequate geographic separation of backup media
Storing backups too close to the primary site means a single regional disaster can destroy both, violating the geographic separation principle of off-site backup storage.
Question 4: In the context of emergency preparedness, what is an Emergency Operations Center (EOC)?
- A cloud-based ticketing system for IT incidents
- A centralized command facility used to coordinate response and recovery during emergencies (Correct answer)
- A backup data center that handles production traffic during failover
- A government agency that oversees corporate disaster planning
Correct answer: A centralized command facility used to coordinate response and recovery during emergencies
An EOC is a dedicated physical or virtual space where leadership and key personnel gather to coordinate emergency response, communications, and decision-making.
Question 5: Which of the following BEST describes a 'warm site' in disaster recovery?
- A site with hardware installed but requiring data restoration before going live (Correct answer)
- A fully operational duplicate environment identical to production
- An empty facility with only basic utilities and no equipment
- A mobile trailer unit that can be deployed anywhere
Correct answer: A site with hardware installed but requiring data restoration before going live
A warm site has pre-installed hardware and connectivity but requires data restoration from backups, resulting in a moderate RTO typically measured in hours.
Question 6: A system administrator is creating an emergency communication tree for a major outage. Which information is MOST critical to include for each contact?
- Employee start date and salary band
- Multiple contact methods and an alternate contact in case of unavailability (Correct answer)
- Home address and nearest emergency shelter
- Job title history and performance review dates
Correct answer: Multiple contact methods and an alternate contact in case of unavailability
Emergency call trees must include multiple contact methods (cell, email, personal phone) and alternates so the chain continues even if a primary contact is unreachable.
Question 7: During power grid failure, an organization's UPS system sustains critical servers for 15 minutes. The diesel generator fails to start. What should the sysadmin do FIRST?
- Wait for utility power to return
- Initiate a controlled graceful shutdown of non-critical systems to extend UPS runtime while escalating generator failure (Correct answer)
- Immediately cut power to all systems
- Run the generator test script remotely
Correct answer: Initiate a controlled graceful shutdown of non-critical systems to extend UPS runtime while escalating generator failure
Gracefully shutting down non-critical systems conserves UPS capacity for the most critical systems while the generator failure is escalated to facilities/maintenance.
CSA Emergency Preparedness & Safety 3
A chemical spill occurs near the data center loading dock.
Which OSHA standard primarily governs employee emergency response for hazardous substance releases?