DR and BCM

Question 1

What is RTO & RPO in DR context?

Answer 1

RTO - Recovery Time Objective - Time to get back to normal SLA
RPO - Recovery Point Objective - Time prior to disaster to which the system recovers once it gets back to normal SLA

Question 2

What are some of the DR strategies?

Answer 2

Backup & Restore, Pilot Light, Warm standby, Multisite

Question 3

What is pilot light?

Answer 3

Data is mirrored

Question 4

Issues with traditional backup?

Answer 4

Backup may be stored in the same location
Tapes could fail due to overuse
Tapes could get lost
Incorrect tape rotation or labeling
Scalability - SAN and NAS should scale with data
Costs: Huge upfront capex
Data Availability: Data stored offsite

Question 5

Benefits of AWS Storage

Answer 5

Offsite backup
No scalability constraints
No CAPEX
High durability and availability 
Enhanced security features

Question 6

Benefits of cloud storage

Answer 6

Cost efficient
Scalable
Available and durable
Secure
Reliable
Zero maintenance
Offsite storage
Easy replication and automation
Readily accesible
Easy to test DR plans using AWS infra

Question 7

What is the speed of direct connect link?

Answer 7

10 Gibps

Question 8

What are the various options to get data in/out of AWS?

Answer 8

Direct Connect
VPN
Internet Connection
AWS Snowball
AWS Snowmobile
AWS Storage Gateway

Question 9

What are the considerations of retrieving backup data from AWS?

Answer 9

Data connection speed
Data volume
RTO

Question 10

Types of S3 storage class?

Answer 10

Standard
Standard IA
Glacier

Question 11

What are the three retrieval options for Glacier?

Answer 11

Expedited
Standard
Bulk

Question 12

What is CRR?

Answer 12

Cross Region Replication

Question 13

What are the various security options in S3?

Answer 13

IAM Policies
Bucket Policies
Access Control Lists
Lifecycle Policies
MFA Delete
Versioning

Question 14

When to use Snowball?

Answer 14

When it takes more than a week to transfer

Question 15

What is an AWS Storage Gateway?

Answer 15

A software appliance (virtual machine) to transfer data from your data center to S3 or Glacier

Question 16

What are the different options of Storage Gateways?

Answer 16

File - similar to a NFS share, data sent over HTTPS, all objects are encrypted, local cache is provisioned to optimize latency

Volume - Stored and Cache -

Stored VG - Presented as iSCSI devices, primary data storage is on-premise storage soln

Cached VG - primary storage is S3, Presented as iSCSI

Tape - Virtual Tale Libraries. Uses Glacier for data archiving