DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on Amazon RDS for MySQL. To ensure high availability and automatic failover, the database is deployed as a Multi-AZ DB instance. The application uses read-heavy workloads. Which additional configuration should be used to offload read traffic without impacting write performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume the Multi-AZ standby instance can be used for read queries, but AWS explicitly prevents this to ensure failover consistency, making Read Replicas the correct choice for offloading reads.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create one or more Read Replicas in different AZs.
Amazon RDS Read Replicas are designed to offload read traffic from the primary DB instance without affecting write performance. Unlike the Multi-AZ standby instance, which is not accessible for reads, Read Replicas can be placed in different Availability Zones and serve read queries independently, improving read scalability while the primary handles writes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use the Multi-AZ standby instance for read queries.
Why it's wrong here
The standby instance in Multi-AZ is not accessible for reads; it is only for failover.
- ✓
Create one or more Read Replicas in different AZs.
Why this is correct
Read Replicas can handle read traffic, and Multi-AZ ensures high availability for writes.
- ✗
Use Amazon ElastiCache to cache read queries.
Why it's wrong here
Caching reduces load but does not offload read queries from the database for all workloads.
- ✗
Change to a Single-AZ deployment with a larger instance size.
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ does not provide automatic failover.
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