SAA-C03 Design High-Performing Architectures Practice Question
A company has a high-performance database running on Amazon RDS for MySQL. The workload is read-heavy and experiences latency during peak hours. Which solution will improve read performance with minimal architectural changes?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates sometimes suggest Multi-AZ to improve read performance. Multi-AZ is for high availability and failover, whereas Read Replicas are specifically designed to offload read traffic and scale performance.
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 one or more RDS Read Replicas and update the application connection string.
Creating an RDS Read Replica allows the application to offload read-only traffic from the primary database instance. By routing read queries to the replica, the primary instance can focus solely on write operations. This architecture is a standard practice for scaling read-heavy workloads in relational databases, ensuring lower latency and better resource utilization without requiring significant code modifications or complex database sharding.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable Multi-AZ deployment for the existing RDS instance.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ is designed for high availability and disaster recovery, not for performance scaling. While it provides a standby instance, that instance is not accessible for read traffic. Therefore, it does not alleviate the read load on the primary instance or improve read performance for the application.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to a larger DB instance class.
Why it's wrong here
Scaling vertically by increasing instance size can improve performance, but it is often more expensive than scaling horizontally. Read replicas provide a more cost-effective and scalable approach for read-heavy workloads by allowing you to add multiple read nodes as traffic grows over time.
- ✓
Create one or more RDS Read Replicas and update the application connection string.
Why this is correct
Read replicas enable asynchronous replication from the primary database, effectively offloading read traffic. By updating the application to direct read queries to these endpoints, you maximize database throughput. This approach is the most efficient way to scale read performance in RDS environments without complex refactoring.
- ✗
Migrate the database to Amazon DynamoDB.
Why it's wrong here
Migrating to a NoSQL database like DynamoDB requires a complete rewrite of the application data access layer and schema. This is not a minimal architectural change and is only recommended if the application requires NoSQL-specific features or scale-out capabilities that relational databases cannot provide.
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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
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