DOP-C02 Resilient Cloud Solutions Practice Question
A DevOps engineer is responsible for a critical application that uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL cluster. The application experiences sudden spikes in read traffic. The engineer needs to ensure that read replicas automatically scale to handle the load and that the application can tolerate the failure of an Availability Zone without manual intervention. Which solution should the engineer implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Aurora Replicas with RDS read replicas or assuming that manual scaling via Lambda is needed, when Aurora Auto Scaling handles it natively.
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 an Aurora Auto Scaling policy that adds Aurora Replicas based on CPU utilization, and place the replicas in multiple Availability Zones.
Aurora Auto Scaling automatically adds or removes Aurora Replicas based on performance metrics, such as CPU utilization, to handle read traffic spikes. Deploying replicas across multiple Availability Zones ensures that the cluster remains available if an AZ fails. This managed feature provides automatic scaling and high availability with minimal operational effort, directly satisfying the requirements.
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 Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ and create read replicas in multiple Availability Zones, then configure an Auto Scaling group for the replicas.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon RDS for MySQL does not support automatic scaling of read replicas via Auto Scaling groups. Read replicas are independent DB instances that must be managed manually. This option also changes the database engine from Aurora to RDS, which is not required. It fails to provide automatic replica scaling and introduces unnecessary complexity.
- ✓
Create an Aurora Auto Scaling policy that adds Aurora Replicas based on CPU utilization, and place the replicas in multiple Availability Zones.
Why this is correct
Aurora Auto Scaling automatically adjusts the number of Aurora Replicas based on metrics like CPU utilization. Placing replicas in multiple Availability Zones ensures that if one AZ fails, replicas in other AZs continue to serve read traffic. This solution provides automatic scaling and AZ resilience with minimal manual intervention, meeting both requirements.
- ✗
Enable Aurora Global Database and promote a secondary Region during read spikes to distribute the load.
Why it's wrong here
Aurora Global Database is designed for cross-Region disaster recovery and low-latency reads, not for automatic scaling of read replicas within a Region. Promoting a secondary Region is a manual failover operation that does not address sudden read traffic spikes. This option does not provide automatic scaling and is overly complex for the requirement.
- ✗
Configure an Application Load Balancer to distribute read traffic across multiple Aurora Replicas, and use AWS Lambda to add replicas when CPU exceeds a threshold.
Why it's wrong here
While an Application Load Balancer can distribute traffic, Aurora Replicas are not directly registered with an ALB; they are accessed via the reader endpoint. Using Lambda to add replicas is a custom solution that adds operational overhead and is not as robust as Aurora Auto Scaling. This option does not leverage the built-in auto scaling feature and may introduce delays.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.