DOP-C02 Resilient Cloud Solutions Practice Question
This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of resilient cloud solutions. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is designing a disaster recovery strategy for a critical application that requires a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 15 minutes and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 hour. The application runs on EC2 with data stored in Amazon RDS Multi-AZ. Which approach meets these requirements?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use a pilot light strategy with RDS cross-Region read replicas and automated backups
Option A is correct because a pilot light strategy with RDS cross-Region read replicas and automated backups meets the RTO of 15 minutes and RPO of 1 hour. The cross-Region read replica provides near-synchronous replication with an RPO typically under 5 seconds, and automated backups enable point-in-time recovery within the 1-hour RPO. The pilot light approach allows rapid promotion of the replica to a primary instance, achieving the 15-minute RTO by keeping minimal core services running in the DR Region.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 a pilot light strategy with RDS cross-Region read replicas and automated backups
Why this is correct
Pilot light can achieve RTO 15 min, RPO 1 hour.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use backup and restore with daily snapshots to another Region
Why it's wrong here
Daily snapshots exceed RPO of 1 hour.
✗
Use a warm standby with a scaled-down production environment in another Region
Why it's wrong here
Can meet RTO but may not meet RPO if not using replication.
✗
Use a Multi-AZ deployment in the same Region for DR
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ does not protect against Region failure.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Multi-AZ (high availability within a Region) with cross-Region disaster recovery, assuming Multi-AZ alone provides DR, but it does not protect against Region-wide outages.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
RDS cross-Region read replicas use asynchronous replication with a typical lag of less than 5 seconds under normal conditions, but can increase under heavy write loads. Automated backups in RDS enable point-in-time recovery to any second within the backup retention period, which can be set to 1 hour or less. The pilot light strategy involves replicating data and running a minimal version of the application (e.g., a single small EC2 instance) in the DR Region, allowing rapid scaling and promotion of the read replica to a primary instance within minutes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Resilient Cloud Solutions — This question tests Resilient Cloud Solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use a pilot light strategy with RDS cross-Region read replicas and automated backups — Option A is correct because a pilot light strategy with RDS cross-Region read replicas and automated backups meets the RTO of 15 minutes and RPO of 1 hour. The cross-Region read replica provides near-synchronous replication with an RPO typically under 5 seconds, and automated backups enable point-in-time recovery within the 1-hour RPO. The pilot light approach allows rapid promotion of the replica to a primary instance, achieving the 15-minute RTO by keeping minimal core services running in the DR Region.
What should I do if I get this DOP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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