What issues can arise with data synchronization across systems, and what is a common mitigation approach?

• A. Data duplication and misalignment across systems; mitigate with manual reconciliation.
• B. Security vulnerabilities from cross-system access; mitigate with MFA.
• C. Latency and conflicts; mitigate with timestamp/versioning and predefined conflict resolution policies.
• D. Network outages causing data loss; mitigate with offline backups.

Answer: (C)

When data is synchronized across systems, delays and competing updates can create two common problems: changes arriving at different times (latency) and multiple versions of the same record (conflicts). A solid way to handle this is to attach a timestamp or version number to each change and define how to resolve conflicts in advance. Timestamps help determine which update is newer, while versioning tracks the sequence of edits. With predefined conflict resolution policies, the system can automatically merge changes or escalate to a human when needed, ensuring consistent state across all systems. This approach is scalable and reduces the need for tedious manual reconciliation. The other options touch on security or outages, which are important but address different risks than the core synchronization challenges.