Cloud Engineer interview question · Most asked
Explain RTO and RPO and the four disaster recovery strategies.
Summary
RTO is the maximum acceptable downtime; RPO the maximum acceptable data loss in time. Strategies in increasing cost: backup and restore (hours), pilot light (core data replicated, minimal infra), warm standby (scaled-down full copy running), and multi-site active-active (near-zero RTO/RPO).
Longer Answer
Choose the cheapest strategy meeting each system's targets; test regularly, because untested DR rarely meets its RTO.
Key Points
- RTO = downtime; RPO = data loss.
- Backup/restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site.
- Cost rises with tighter targets.
- Test it.
Deep dive: Cloud Computing Tutorial: Reliability and Disaster Recovery
Explanation
What interviewers look for
Correct definitions and trade-offs.
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