Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs Amazon RDS for MySQL in a Multi-AZ configuration. If the primary database instance fails, what is the expected behavior?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
The database remains unavailable until an administrator manually creates a new instance.
Manual recreation is not how Multi-AZ is designed to recover from a primary failure.
B
Best answer
RDS automatically fails over to the standby instance in the same Region and keeps the same endpoint.
Multi-AZ RDS is built for high availability. If the primary instance becomes unavailable, AWS automatically promotes the standby in the same Region and updates the DNS behind the database endpoint. Applications keep using the same connection string, so failover is largely transparent. This reduces downtime without requiring manual intervention or application changes.
C
Distractor review
Traffic is routed to a read replica in another Region for immediate continuity.
A read replica is not the same as a Multi-AZ standby, and another Region is a disaster recovery pattern.
D
Distractor review
The failed primary continues serving traffic while the standby synchronizes in the background.
A failed primary cannot continue serving traffic; the standby becomes active after failover.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
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Question 2
A team wants to run containerized services with AWS-managed orchestration and autoscaling. They do NOT require Kubernetes compatibility. Which AWS service choice is most appropriate to meet these goals?
Question 3
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Question 4
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Question 5
A team wants to delegate IAM management to developers, but must ensure developers can never grant themselves permissions beyond a specific limit. Which AWS mechanism best matches this requirement?
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A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAA-C03 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: RDS automatically fails over to the standby instance in the same Region and keeps the same endpoint. — Multi-AZ RDS provides high availability within a Region by maintaining a synchronous standby copy of the database. When the primary instance fails or becomes impaired, AWS automatically performs failover to the standby and preserves the same database endpoint for the application. That makes recovery fast and mostly transparent. Multi-AZ is not a cross-Region disaster recovery design, but it is the standard choice for surviving an instance or infrastructure failure in one Region. Why others are wrong: The other choices describe recovery patterns that do not match Multi-AZ RDS behavior. Manual recreation is slower and unnecessary. A read replica in another Region is for DR or scaling, not automatic Multi-AZ failover. The primary cannot continue serving traffic after failure; the standby is promoted instead.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
Discussion
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