SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question
A solutions architect is designing a mission-critical web application that runs on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application must remain available even if an entire AWS Region experiences a catastrophic failure. The RPO must be near zero, and the RTO must be less than 15 minutes. Which disaster recovery strategy should the architect implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
SAA-C03 often tests the trade-offs between DR strategies, and candidates may confuse warm standby or pilot light with active-active, not realizing that only active-active can meet near-zero RPO and <15 min RTO.
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
✓
Configure a multi-site active-active deployment spanning two AWS Regions with continuous data replication and Route 53 health checks.
A multi-site active-active deployment spanning two AWS Regions with continuous data replication and Route 53 health checks provides near-zero RPO and sub-15-minute RTO by allowing both regions to serve traffic simultaneously. If one region fails, Route 53 automatically redirects traffic to the healthy region, ensuring continuous availability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Implement a backup and restore strategy using automated daily Amazon EBS snapshots copied to a secondary AWS Region.
Why it's wrong here
Automated daily EBS snapshots copied to another region result in an RPO of up to 24 hours and a high RTO due to time required for infrastructure rebuilding. This strategy is completely inadequate for workloads demanding near-zero RPO and rapid recovery times.
- ✗
Deploy a pilot light strategy by maintaining a minimal footprint of core database and configuration services in a secondary Region.
Why it's wrong here
A pilot light strategy keeps critical components running in a secondary region while scaling up compute only during a disaster. While it reduces costs, the RTO typically exceeds 15 minutes because deploying and configuring application servers takes significant time.
- ✓
Configure a multi-site active-active deployment spanning two AWS Regions with continuous data replication and Route 53 health checks.
Why this is correct
Running active workloads across two regions with continuous data replication ensures that traffic can be rerouted instantly upon failure. Route 53 health checks monitor endpoint availability, delivering an RTO of under 15 minutes and minimal RPO.
- ✗
Set up a warm standby architecture running a scaled-down version of the entire application stack in a secondary Region.
Why it's wrong here
A warm standby architecture keeps a scaled-down version of the application running constantly, allowing faster scaling than pilot light. However, scaling up the fleet and warming caches can still exceed a tight 15-minute RTO during an unexpected regional outage.
About these practice questions
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JA
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 SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.