DEA-C01 Data Operations and Support Practice Question
A data engineer is designing a disaster recovery strategy for an Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL database that is used in a data pipeline. The database must have a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 1 minute and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 5 minutes. Which TWO actions should the engineer take?
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
✓
Enable automated backups with point-in-time recovery.
Options B and C are correct. Multi-AZ deployment with a standby instance enables automatic failover, typically achieving an RTO of under 1-2 minutes. Combined with automated backups and point-in-time recovery, which allow database restoration to any point within seconds (RPO of less than 1 minute), the requirements are met. Option A is incorrect because manual snapshots are not frequent enough to guarantee RPO under 1 minute and restoring from a snapshot takes longer than 5 minutes. Option D is incorrect because a read replica in a different Availability Zone is not designed for automatic failover; it is for read scaling and requires manual promotion. Option E is incorrect because Amazon Aurora Global Database is a different service; this question is about Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, and cross-Region replication for RDS does not provide automatic failover and typically has higher RTO.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Take frequent manual snapshots and copy them to another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Manual snapshots have higher RPO/RTO.
- ✓
Enable automated backups with point-in-time recovery.
Why this is correct
Allows recovery to any point within retention period, meeting RPO.
- ✓
Enable Multi-AZ deployment with a standby instance.
Why this is correct
Provides automatic failover with low RTO.
- ✗
Create a read replica in a different Availability Zone.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas do not provide automatic failover.
- ✗
Use cross-Region replication with Amazon Aurora Global Database.
Why it's wrong here
Aurora Global Database has higher RTO than Multi-AZ.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This DEA-C01 question is part of Courseiva's 1,711-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.