ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · IT systems security and control
Harlow Retail needs its online store back within minutes of a failure and cannot lose any orders. Management is weighing a cold site, a warm site and a hot site with real-time data replication. Which option best matches the requirement and what is the key implication?
A hot site with real-time replication fits best. It allows recovery within minutes and almost no data loss, but it carries the highest cost because duplicate infrastructure runs continuously. Cold or warm sites and weekly backups would breach the stated requirements.
- AA cold site, accepting that recovery will be slow but cheap
- BA warm site restored from weekly tape backups, accepting some lost orders
- CA hot site with real-time replication, accepting the highest ongoing costCorrect
- DRelying on insurance, since it restores systems quickly after an outage
Explanation
Near-zero downtime and no data loss require a fully equipped site with continuous replication, which is a hot site. The cost of duplicate infrastructure is the trade-off. Cold and warm sites with periodic backups cannot meet the stated objectives, and insurance compensates financially but does not restore systems.
Did you get it right without looking?
One question tells you little. A timed set on IT systems security and control shows your real accuracy, how long you take and where you lose marks.
More IT systems security and control questions
- Brightwater Hospital's finance clerk was moved to the payroll team and still has access to the supplier master file, which allows creation o…
- Brightwater Utilities has moved its customer portal to a public cloud provider. An internal review notes that a misconfigured storage bucket…
- Kestrel Logistics has found that a developer who writes changes to its inventory system can also move those changes into the live environmen…
- Orchid Retail's payroll application rejects any record where the hours worked exceed 80 per week and flags employee numbers that do not exis…
- Pelham Engineering and its overseas subsidiary exchange confidential design files by email. Management wants any recipient to verify both th…
- Marlow Bank has identified that a ransomware attack on its payment system has a high impact but a low likelihood, because of strong existing…