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Difficulty: Very hardResilience, High Availability, and Redundancy

A security architect is designing a high-availability infrastructure across two geographically separated cloud regions for a critical financial transactions platform. The business impact analysis specifies a Recovery Point Objective (RPORPO) of near-zero (RPO<1 secondRPO < 1\text{ second}) and a Recovery Time Objective (RTORTO) of less than 30 seconds30\text{ seconds}. The design must prevent split-brain condition states during network partitions and ensure continuous operation during full regional outage scenarios. Which TWO of the following architecture controls or configurations must be combined to meet these strict availability, consistency, and resilience requirements? (Select TWO.)

  1. Synchronous database replication across active regions coupled with a quorum-based witness server deployed in an independent third availability zoneAnswer
  2. B
    Local RAID 10 disk arrays configured on primary database nodes to eliminate the need for cross-region data synchronization
  3. Global server load balancing (GSLB) with health probes for dynamic traffic redirection and low Time-To-Live (TTL) DNS failover recordsAnswer
  4. D
    Out-of-band Intrusion Detection System (IDS) sensors deployed at regional perimeters operating in passive monitoring mode

Answer

The architecture requires synchronous database replication with a third-zone quorum witness alongside Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) with automated health probes and low DNS TTL records.
Achieving a near-zero RPO and sub-minute RTO across dual regions requires synchronous database replication with a third-zone quorum witness to prevent split-brain states, combined with Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) and low DNS TTL for rapid automated traffic rerouting.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze RPO requirement (RPO<1 secondRPO < 1\text{ second})
Near-zero RPO requires synchronous data replication between active nodes so transactions are committed at both sites before returning success.
Asynchronous replication can introduce latency gaps leading to data loss upon failure, whereas synchronous replication guarantees data consistency.
2
Evaluate split-brain prevention for multi-region active designs
Deploying an independent tie-breaker/witness node in a third availability zone maintains cluster consensus.
If connectivity breaks between the two primary regions, the third-party witness determines which region holds the true quorum, preventing both sites from operating independently as primary.
3
Analyze RTO requirement (RTO<30 secondsRTO < 30\text{ seconds})
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) with continuous health checking and short DNS TTL enables rapid automated client redirection.
Automated traffic management redirects incoming requests to healthy endpoints without waiting for manual intervention or prolonged DNS cache expiration.

Key Concept

High Availability and Multi-Site Disaster Resilience
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Topics

Resilience, High Availability, and Redundancy

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