The core principle for mitigating a single point of failure (SPOF) in a high-availability (HA) architecture is implementing a reliable failover mechanism. This ensures that if a primary Pega node or component fails, a redundant, standby node automatically and seamlessly takes over its processing responsibilities. This process maintains service continuity and prevents data loss, directly addressing the financial institution's requirement for an "always-on" platform. While failure detection is necessary, the failover action itself is the primary mitigation against the downtime caused by a SPOF.

A: Regular data backups are a component of a Disaster Recovery (DR) strategy, which is distinct from High Availability. DR focuses on recovering from catastrophic data loss, not preventing immediate service interruption.

B: Establishing a single administrative group creates a new single point of failure from an operational and security perspective, directly contradicting the goal of avoiding common cause failures.

D: Detecting failures is a critical prerequisite for initiating a failover, but detection alone does not mitigate the failure. The failover process is the actual countermeasure that ensures service continuity.

1. Pega Platform™ High Availability Administration Guide: In the "High availability overview" section

the guide defines high availability through features like redundancy and failover. It states

"Failover is the process of switching to a redundant or standby system component upon the failure or abnormal termination of the previously active component." This directly supports that failover is the key mechanism for handling component failure.

2. Pega Academy - Lead System Architect (8.7) Module: "Ensuring High Availability": This courseware emphasizes that a high-availability architecture relies on eliminating single points of failure through redundancy and automatic failover. It distinguishes HA (maintaining uptime) from Disaster Recovery (recovering from site-wide failure)

clarifying why backups (Option A) are not the primary HA principle.

3. Pega Community - Article: "High availability": This article outlines the key features of a Pega HA configuration

listing "Redundancy

Failover

and Monitoring." It clarifies that failover is the active process that ensures continuity when a redundant component is needed

positioning it as the central principle for mitigating a SPOF. Monitoring (Option D) is presented as a supporting feature that enables failover.