Enhancing Reliability via Component Duplication

CDL By islever Editorial Last updated

Short answer

A The organization should use Redundancy to duplicate critical components and eliminate single points of failure.

Question

An organization wants to duplicate critical system components to enhance reliability and mitigate single points of failure. Which design consideration should the organization use?
  1. Redundancy Correct Answer
  2. Backups
  3. Latency
  4. Security

Key Takeaways

The core trap is confusing 'Redundancy' (active/passive duplication for uptime) with 'Backups' (data replication for recovery). The prompt specifies duplicating 'components' to enhance 'reliability', which points to infrastructure resilience rather than data restoration.

This question tests the fundamental concept of designing systems to mitigate single points of failure through component duplication. The correct answer is Redundancy, as it directly addresses hardware and system availability.

Common mistake: Many learners select Backups because they associate critical systems with data protection. However, backups do not provide immediate reliability or mitigate single points of failure during operation; they only aid in recovery after a failure occurs.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Redundancy is the specific design strategy that involves duplicating critical components (such as servers, power supplies, network paths, or storage drives) to ensure that if one component fails, another can take over immediately. This eliminates single points of failure (SPOFs) and enhances system availability and reliability. By having duplicate components, the organization ensures continuous operation even during hardware maintenance or unexpected failures.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Backups are essential for data integrity and disaster recovery but do not inherently improve real-time system reliability or eliminate SPOFs. A backup stored on a separate drive does not keep the primary system running if that drive fails. Latency refers to the time delay in data transmission, which is a performance metric, not a design consideration for reliability. Security protects against malicious threats, whereas redundancy protects against accidental or physical failures.

Community Comment Notes

The community consensus strongly favors Redundancy. As one user noted, "redundancy of components remediate single point of failure problem," highlighting the direct link between duplication and availability. Another commenter clarified that while backups handle data loss, they "does not include hardware redundancy." Some users initially considered backups but were corrected by the distinction that redundancy focuses on operational continuity rather than just data preservation.

Official Reference

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication800-34r1.pdf

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Exam Strategy

When analyzing design requirements, distinguish between 'availability/reliability' goals (often solved by redundancy/HA) and 'recovery/data safety' goals (solved by backups/disaster recovery). Look for keywords like 'single point of failure,' 'uptime,' and 'continuous operation' to guide you toward Redundancy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn't Backup the right answer for reliability?

Backups restore data after failure but do not keep the system running. Redundancy provides immediate failover capability to maintain reliability.

What is a single point of failure?

A single point of failure is a part of a system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. Redundancy removes these points by adding duplicates.

More CDL FAQ →

Community Votes

A
100%

100% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 7 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 7

  1. 73f8ac3 👍 3 Answered A
    Redundancy also includes date redundancy but backup does not include hardware redundancy, so right answer is A
  2. xdkonorek2 👍 2 Answered A
    redundancy of components remediate single point of failure problem
  3. 0c1aac0 👍 1
    B: Backups - Regular backups of critical data and configurations are crucial to ensure that if data loss, hardware failures, or cyber-attacks occur, organizations can restore their systems to a previous state.
  4. e9369c7 👍 1 Answered B
    B should be the correct answer
  5. bad5fad 👍 4 Answered A
    A is the solution
Show 2 more comments
  1. sallymaher 👍 3
    A is the correct solution
  2. Dadadagreat 👍 1
    I'll go for B backups

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