How is high availability defined in deployment terms?

• A. Complete elimination of maintenance windows.
• B. Requires no monitoring or testing.
• C. Redundant components, failover capabilities, and minimal downtime during outages.
• D. Achieved by single powerful server.

Answer: (C)

High availability means the system is designed so the service stays up and reachable even if parts of the setup fail. This is achieved through redundant components (multiple servers, databases, paths), automated failover that quickly redirects traffic to healthy parts, and architectures that minimize downtime when failures occur. That’s why this option is the best: it captures the idea of built-in redundancy, automatic recovery, and short outages when outages happen.

The other ideas miss the essence: completely eliminating maintenance windows isn’t realistic since some planned downtime is often needed for updates; relying on no monitoring or testing eliminates the very checks that ensure failover will work when needed; and depending on a single strong server lacks redundancy and creates a single point of failure, defeating the purpose of high availability.