Which statement best describes synchronous data replication and its effect on Recovery Point Objective (RPO)?

Which statement best describes synchronous data replication and its effect on Recovery Point Objective (RPO)?

• A. It copies data across sites in real time, yielding near-zero RPO.
• B. It enforces encryption on backups during transit.
• C. It introduces significant write latency and increases RPO.
• D. It eliminates the need for backups by itself.

Answer: (A)

Synchronous data replication means a write on the primary site isn’t considered complete until it’s durably written at the remote site. That guarantees the most recent data is present at both locations, so the amount of data that could be lost in a failure is effectively zero, giving a near-zero Recovery Point Objective. In other words, outages won’t erase recent transactions because they’re already safely stored offsite in real time. The other ideas aren’t about data loss in outages: encryption during transit protects security, not how much data could be lost; adding write latency can be a trade-off but doesn’t increase RPO—in fact, synchronous replication aims to minimize it; and replication alone isn’t a substitute for backups, since backups protect against data corruption or accidental deletions beyond what real-time replication covers.

Synchronous data replication means a write on the primary site isn’t considered complete until it’s durably written at the remote site. That guarantees the most recent data is present at both locations, so the amount of data that could be lost in a failure is effectively zero, giving a near-zero Recovery Point Objective. In other words, outages won’t erase recent transactions because they’re already safely stored offsite in real time. The other ideas aren’t about data loss in outages: encryption during transit protects security, not how much data could be lost; adding write latency can be a trade-off but doesn’t increase RPO—in fact, synchronous replication aims to minimize it; and replication alone isn’t a substitute for backups, since backups protect against data corruption or accidental deletions beyond what real-time replication covers.