A group wants to store data while collaborating on a project. Which of the following is the best option to enable high availability of the data?

Cloud storage is the best option as it is inherently designed for both collaboration and high availability. Cloud service providers utilize geographically distributed data centers with redundant hardware, networking, and power. This architecture ensures that data remains accessible to all authorized group members over the internet, even in the event of a localized hardware failure or outage. This directly addresses the need for data to be consistently available for a collaborative project, protecting against single points of failure that are characteristic of local storage devices.

B. External hard drive: This is a single physical device, representing a single point of failure. It is not suitable for simultaneous access by a group and lacks inherent redundancy.
C. Flash drive: Like an external hard drive, a flash drive is a single point of failure. It is also easily lost or damaged, making it unreliable for critical project data.
D. Local backup: A local backup is a copy of data for disaster recovery, not a primary solution for collaborative access. It does not provide the high availability or simultaneous access required by the group.

1. Mell

P.

& Grance

T. (2011). The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (NIST Special Publication 800-145). National Institute of Standards and Technology. On page 2

the definition of "Broad network access" states that cloud capabilities are available over the network

which is fundamental for a collaborative group. The concept of "Resource pooling" also implies a robust

shared infrastructure not dependent on a single device.

2. Armbrust

M.

Fox

A.

Griffith

R.

Joseph

A. D.

Katz

R.

Konwinski

A.

Lee

G.

Patterson

D.

Rabkin

A.

Stoica

I.

& Zaharia

M. (2010). A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM

53(4)

50–58. https://doi.org/10.1145/1721654.1721672. In Section 3

"Classes of Utility Computing

" the paper explains that cloud providers offer highly available services by leveraging massive

statistically multiplexed datacenters

a level of availability that is impractical to achieve with local storage options like external drives.