To perform a complete restore to the most current state (Friday), the system requires an unbroken chain of data from the last full backup to the final incremental backup.

1. The Monday (Full) backup is the essential baseline.

2. The Wednesday (Cumulative Incremental) backup contains all changes since the Monday full backup. This makes the Tuesday backup redundant, as its changes are included in the Wednesday backup.

3. The Thursday (Differential Incremental) backup contains the changes that occurred since the Wednesday backup.

4. The Friday (Differential Incremental) backup contains the changes that occurred since the Thursday backup.

Therefore, the minimum set of images required is: Monday's Full, Wednesday's Cumulative, Thursday's Differential, and Friday's Differential. This totals four backup images.

A. one: Incorrect. Using only the final incremental backup from Friday would result in significant data loss, as it only contains the changes since Thursday, not the complete data set.

B. two: Incorrect. Using only the full backup (Monday) and the final incremental (Friday) would omit all the data changes from Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

C. three: Incorrect. This count is insufficient and would lead to an incomplete restore. It would require omitting one of the necessary images in the dependency chain (e.g., Thursday's changes), resulting in data loss.

E. five: Incorrect. This would include the Tuesday backup. The Wednesday cumulative backup makes the Tuesday differential backup redundant because it contains all changes since the full backup on Monday.

1. Cohesity Data Protection Concepts Documentation: In the "Backup and Recovery" section

the documentation states: "To recover data from a specific point in time

Cohesity combines the initial full backup with all the incremental backups up to that point in time to create a fully hydrated backup." This establishes the principle of using a chain of backups for a restore.

2. Cohesity Oracle Database Protection Guide: When discussing Oracle backup strategies

Cohesity documentation details the handling of different incremental types. It clarifies that a "Level 1 Cumulative" backup (analogous to the question's "Cumulative Incremental") captures all changes since the last "Level 0" (Full) backup. This supports the logic that the Wednesday backup contains all changes since Monday

making the Tuesday backup redundant.

3. Patterson

D. A.

& Hennessy

J. L. (2017). Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface. Morgan Kaufmann. Chapter 6

"Parallel Processors from Client to Cloud

" discusses storage systems and dependability. Section 6.8 describes backup and recovery schemes

defining the dependency of incremental and differential backups on a full backup

which underpins the logic used here. A restore requires the full backup plus the relevant chain of subsequent changes.