DOP-C02 Resilient Cloud Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery plan for a MySQL database running on Amazon RDS. The database is critical and must have an RPO of 5 minutes and an RTO of 1 hour. The primary Region is us-east-1, and the DR Region is us-west-2. Which TWO steps should the company take to meet these requirements? (Choose TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Multi-AZ (which provides automatic failover within a Region) with cross-Region disaster recovery, or assume that automated backups or snapshot copies can meet a low RPO/RTO when they actually require time-consuming restore operations.
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 a cross-Region read replica in us-west-2.
A cross-Region read replica in us-west-2 provides a near-real-time copy of the primary database, with replication lag typically measured in seconds, easily meeting the 5-minute RPO. During a disaster, promoting this read replica to a standalone instance in us-west-2 can be completed in minutes, satisfying the 1-hour RTO. This approach avoids the recovery time needed to restore from a snapshot or backup.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a cross-Region read replica in us-west-2.
Why this is correct
Cross-Region read replicas replicate with low lag, achieving RPO under 5 minutes.
- ✗
Enable automated backups with a 5-minute backup window.
Why it's wrong here
Automated backups are taken once per day, not every 5 minutes.
- ✗
Configure cross-Region automated snapshot copy to us-west-2.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are taken once per day and copy may have significant lag.
- ✓
Set up a process to promote the read replica to a standalone instance in us-west-2 during a disaster.
Why this is correct
Promotion takes minutes, meeting RTO of 1 hour.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment in us-east-1.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ is for high availability within a Region, not for cross-Region DR.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on DOP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company's DevOps team is designing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application. The application runs on EC2 instances with an RDS MySQL database. The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is 15 minutes, and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is 1 hour. Which approach BEST meets these requirements?
easy- A.Use backup and restore with daily snapshots stored in S3 and cross-Region replication.
- ✓ B.Use a multi-Region application with Route 53 latency-based routing and RDS read replicas in the DR Region.
- C.Use a warm standby strategy with a scaled-down copy of the production environment in the DR Region, and replicate data using RDS Multi-AZ with synchronous replication.
- D.Use a pilot light strategy with EC2 instances stopped and RDS snapshots copied to the DR Region.
Why B: The best approach for a multi-Region disaster recovery with RTO of 15 minutes and RPO of 1 hour. By deploying the application in multiple regions and using RDS cross-Region read replicas, data is asynchronously replicated with an RPO typically within seconds to minutes, well within 1 hour. In the event of a failure, the read replica can be promoted to a primary instance, and Route 53 routing (preferably failover routing, but latency-based routing can also redirect traffic) can shift traffic to the DR region. This failover can be completed within a few minutes, meeting the 15-minute RTO. Option A fails because daily snapshots exceed the 1-hour RPO and restore times exceed the RTO. Option C incorrectly relies on RDS Multi-AZ, which is a single-region high-availability feature and does not provide cross-region replication; thus it cannot serve as a disaster recovery solution across regions. Option D, pilot light with snapshots, has a longer RTO as it requires restoring instances from snapshots and starting them, likely exceeding 15 minutes.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DOP-C02 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 DOP-C02 exam.