Backup and Disaster Recovery
This domain tests solution design: RPO/RTO targets, the right replication or backup mechanism, and three-data-center topologies.
Targets and tiers
RPO is the maximum acceptable data loss in time; RTO is the maximum acceptable downtime. Local protection (RAID, snapshots) covers component failure. Remote replication covers site failure. Backup covers logical corruption, deletion and long retention. Match the mechanism to the failure you are designing against.
Huawei building blocks
HyperMetro is array-level active-active: both sites accept writes, RPO = 0 and RTO ≈ 0, hosts multipath across sites, and a third-site quorum server arbitrates so both arrays cannot keep writing after a link failure; a configured static preference decides the winner if the quorum server is unreachable too. HyperReplication is synchronous (RPO = 0, distance limited by the round-trip latency budget) or asynchronous (RPO set by the synchronization cycle and available bandwidth). Three-DC designs layer these: cascading chains replication through the local DR site, while parallel replication goes from production to both DR sites so each can recover independently. OceanProtect backup uses full plus incremental or forever-incremental policies, snapshot-based backup for large volumes, deduplication, compression and immutable or air-gapped copies.
Worked example
A bank wants zero data loss between two campuses 40 km apart plus a third copy 800 km away. Use HyperMetro between the campuses with a quorum server at the third site, and asynchronous HyperReplication from the local DR array to the remote site for a minutes-level RPO. Adding synchronous replication to the 800 km site would blow the latency budget and stall production writes.
Traps
Claiming RPO 0 for asynchronous replication; deploying HyperMetro without a quorum server and accepting split-brain risk; ignoring latency budgets over distance; assuming a successful backup job proves restorability without a test restore; failing to plan switchback after a failover.