A financial services app needs: RPO near zero, RTO under 5 minutes, and cost sensitivity for non-production environments. Which DR architecture balances all three constraints?
A.Active/active across Regions everywhere
Active/active everywhere ignores the cost constraint for non-prod.
B.Multi-AZ plus cross-Region pilot light for prod; backups only for non-prod
Correct. Tiered DR matches RPO/RTO to environment criticality cost-effectively.
C.Backup and restore for all environments
Backup/restore can't meet 5-minute RTO for prod.
D.Single-Region with high-capacity instances
Single Region leaves regional-failure RPO/RTO unaddressed.
Why this answer
Pro questions reward tiered design: prod gets Multi-AZ for AZ resilience plus a cross-Region pilot light (replicated data, provisioned-on-demand app tier) for ~minute-level RTO at controlled cost; non-prod uses cheap backup/restore since tight RTO doesn't justify spend.
Correct answer: B · Last reviewed 2026-10-26
Official AWS references
Practice this interactively
Answer without seeing the solution first in the Complex Solution Design practice session.
Practice Complex Solution Design