IT Disaster Recovery and Resilience Flashcards

Which cloud-based disaster recovery model uses cloud infrastructure to maintain a continuously updated replica of production systems, enabling rapid failover?

Answer: Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) with active replication

DRaaS with active replication continuously replicates production data and system state to cloud infrastructure, enabling rapid failover with minimal data loss and recovery times comparable to on-premises hot sites at a fraction of the capital cost.

What is 'database shadowing' in the context of IT disaster recovery?

Answer: Running concurrent transactions against both the primary and backup databases in real time to maintain synchronization

Database shadowing involves simultaneously writing transactions to both the primary database and one or more shadow copies in real time, maintaining continuously synchronized duplicates that can be activated immediately if the primary fails.

Which IT resilience technique distributes application workloads across multiple geographic locations, allowing each location to handle the full production load if others become unavailable?

Answer: Active-active geo-redundant architecture

Active-active geo-redundant architecture runs production workloads simultaneously across multiple geographic locations, each capable of handling the full load—enabling automatic failover with zero (or near-zero) downtime when a location fails.

In IT disaster recovery planning, what is the 'Recovery Time Actual (RTA)' metric used for?

Answer: Measuring the actual time taken to recover a system during a test or actual incident, for comparison against the RTO target

Recovery Time Actual (RTA) measures the real time taken to recover a system during an exercise or actual incident, enabling comparison against the RTO target to determine whether the recovery solution is meeting its performance requirements.

What is the purpose of conducting a 'tabletop test' specifically for IT disaster recovery?

Answer: To walk recovery team members through a disaster scenario to validate procedures, roles, and decision-making without activating actual recovery systems

An IT DR tabletop test involves walking key recovery personnel through a simulated disaster scenario to validate that procedures are understood, roles are clear, and decision-making sequences are logical—without the risk and cost of actually activating recovery systems.

Which of the following BEST describes 'immutable backups' and their importance to IT resilience?

Answer: Backup copies that cannot be modified, deleted, or encrypted for a defined retention period, protecting against ransomware and accidental deletion

Immutable backups are copies that cannot be altered, deleted, or encrypted by any user or process—including ransomware—for a defined retention period, providing a guaranteed clean recovery point even when production systems and conventional backups are compromised.