DBS-C01 Workload-Specific Database Design Practice Question
Which TWO Amazon RDS features can be used to increase the availability of a production database?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse monitoring features (Enhanced Monitoring, Performance Insights) or backup mechanisms (snapshots, automated backups) with high-availability features, failing to recognize that only Multi-AZ deployments and cross-Region read replicas (with promotion) provide actual failover capabilities to increase availability.
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
✓
Cross-Region read replicas with automatic promotion.
Cross-Region read replicas provide a secondary copy of the database in a different AWS Region, which can be manually promoted to a standalone primary instance in the event of a regional outage. This feature increases availability by enabling a disaster recovery strategy that goes beyond a single AWS Region, ensuring business continuity even if the entire primary Region becomes unavailable.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enhanced Monitoring and Performance Insights.
Why it's wrong here
These are monitoring tools, not availability features.
- ✓
Cross-Region read replicas with automatic promotion.
Why this is correct
Read replicas can be promoted to primary if the source fails.
- ✗
Manual DB snapshot taken every hour.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are for backup, not high availability.
- ✓
Multi-AZ deployment with automatic failover.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ provides a standby instance for failover.
- ✗
Automated backups with a retention period of 35 days.
Why it's wrong here
Backups help recovery but do not reduce downtime during failure.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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