SY0-701 Question 239
Single answerGeographic dispersionA financial services company is redesigning its disaster recovery strategy after a regional power outage took down both its primary data center and a nearby backup facility. The company must ensure that critical systems remain available even if an entire metropolitan area is affected by a natural disaster or long-duration utility failure. Which of the following is the BEST way to address this requirement?
- A
Place the backup data center in a different part of the same city, connected by redundant local fiber links
- B
Implement geographic dispersion by hosting replicated systems in a distant region on a separate power grid and network infrastructure
- C
Increase the number of UPS units and generators at the primary data center to extend local uptime
- D
Schedule more frequent full backups to removable media and store them in the primary facility's fireproof safe
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Geographic dispersion means placing critical systems, backups, or recovery sites far enough apart that a single local or regional event is unlikely to affect them all. In this scenario, the company has already experienced the weakness of keeping a backup facility too close to the primary site. The best answer is to use a distant alternate region with separate power, network, and infrastructure dependencies. This supports business continuity and disaster recovery goals by reducing correlated risk. Best practices from business continuity and disaster recovery guidance, including principles reflected in NIST contingency planning documentation such as NIST SP 800-34, emphasize selecting alternate processing sites with sufficient geographic separation and independent supporting services. While local redundancy, generators, and backups are useful controls, they do not replace true geographic dispersion when the requirement is to survive a regional disaster.
- A. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because moving the backup site to another part of the same city does not sufficiently reduce the risk from regional events. A widespread outage, severe weather event, flood, wildfire, or telecommunications disruption can affect multiple facilities within the same metropolitan area. Redundant local fiber improves connectivity resilience, but it does not satisfy the need for true geographic separation.
- B. Correct.
This is correct because geographic dispersion is specifically intended to reduce the likelihood that a single regional event will impact both primary and recovery capabilities. Hosting replicated systems in a distant region with separate utilities, communications providers, and infrastructure supports business continuity and disaster recovery objectives. This approach is aligned with common resilience best practices that recommend avoiding shared regional dependencies.
- C. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because additional UPS units and generators improve local fault tolerance and short-term availability, but they do not solve the underlying problem of regional concentration risk. If the entire area is affected by a natural disaster, fuel shortage, evacuation order, or major infrastructure failure, the primary site may still become unavailable despite improved on-site power resilience.
- D. Incorrect.
This is incorrect because more frequent backups can improve recovery point objectives, but storing media in the same facility does not protect against site loss. Even if the media were moved offsite, backups alone do not provide the same availability benefits as geographically dispersed replicated systems for critical operations that must continue during a regional disaster.