A company runs a customer relationship management (CRM) application on a single Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL instance. The application experiences heavy read traffic during business hours, often causing the primary database to become overloaded with SELECT queries. The company needs a solution that offloads read queries to a separate database endpoint and provides automatic failover to a standby database in a different Availability Zone if the primary fails. Which combination of Amazon RDS features should the company use to meet these requirements?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
Multi-AZ deployment only
A Multi-AZ deployment provides automatic failover to a standby in a different Availability Zone, but the standby is not active for reads; it only takes over on failure. This does not offload read queries.
Distractor review
Read Replicas only
Read Replicas provide a separate read-only endpoint to offload SELECT queries, but they do not provide automatic failover. If the primary database fails, you must manually promote a Read Replica, which incurs downtime.
Best answer
Multi-AZ deployment with one or more Read Replicas
A Multi-AZ deployment ensures high availability with automatic failover to a standby in a different AZ. Adding Read Replicas offloads read traffic from the primary instance, reducing its load. Both features can be combined.
Distractor review
Cross-Region Read Replicas only
Cross-Region Read Replicas provide read scaling and disaster recovery across AWS Regions, but they do not provide automatic failover in the primary region. If the primary database fails, you would still need to manually promote a replica, and the solution does not address high availability within a single region.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer needs to launch a test server for a new application prototype. The developer logs into the AWS Management Console, selects an Amazon EC2 instance type, configures the security group, and starts the instance. The instance is running within two minutes, and the developer did not need to submit a formal request to the company's IT procurement team or wait for approval from a cloud administrator. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best demonstrate?
Question 2
A solutions architect is planning a new web application on AWS. The workload will include 3 Amazon EC2 instances (t3.medium) running 24/7, an Application Load Balancer, and an Amazon RDS for MySQL db.t3.small database. The architect needs to estimate the monthly cost for the first year, considering different purchasing options (On-Demand, 1-year All Upfront Reserved Instance, and Compute Savings Plan). Which AWS tool should the architect use to create this estimate?
Question 3
A company's development team frequently needs temporary test environments. A developer can log into the AWS Management Console, select an Amazon EC2 instance type, configure storage, and launch the instance within minutes without any interaction with the IT infrastructure team. This capability is an example of which essential characteristic of cloud computing?
Question 4
A company's finance team needs to analyze AWS spending in detail. They require a report that includes hourly cost data for each AWS service, each individual resource (e.g., a specific EC2 instance), and any cost allocation tags applied. The team plans to export this data to an Amazon S3 bucket and then import it into a custom business intelligence (BI) analytics dashboard. Which AWS tool should the finance team use to generate this level of detailed cost data?
Question 5
A company uses AWS for its development environment. The finance team wants to set a monthly budget of $10,000. They want to receive an email notification when the actual costs reach 80% of the budget ($8,000) and again when costs exceed the budget. The team needs a managed AWS service that can automatically send these alerts without requiring custom code or third-party tools. Which AWS service should the team use?
Question 6
A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The security team needs to enforce a policy that restricts SSH access (port 22) from the internet (0.0.0.0/0) in all VPCs across all accounts. The team wants to centrally define the allowed rules and automatically apply them to newly created VPCs and security groups, while also automatically remediating any existing non-compliant security groups. Which AWS service should the team use?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Multi-AZ deployment with one or more Read Replicas — This question tests understanding of Amazon RDS features for high availability and read scaling. A Multi-AZ deployment creates a primary instance in one Availability Zone and synchronously replicates data to a standby instance in another AZ. If the primary fails, Amazon RDS automatically fails over to the standby, providing high availability. Read Replicas are a separate feature that creates a read-only copy of the database (in the same or different region) that can be used to offload read traffic from the primary. Using both features together gives the company read scaling through Read Replicas and automatic failover through Multi-AZ. Option C is correct because it combines both capabilities. Option A (Multi-AZ only) provides high availability but does not offload read queries. Option B (Read Replicas only) provides read scaling but does not automatically failover if the primary fails. Option D (Cross-Region Read Replicas) provides read scaling and disaster recovery across regions but is overkill when the requirement is for high availability within a single region; it also does not provide automatic failover between AZs in the primary region.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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