Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company uses Amazon RDS for a PostgreSQL database powering a customer-facing application. The application’s availability depends on fast database failover with minimal manual intervention. The RDS instance currently runs as a single-AZ deployment in one DB subnet group. Which change most directly meets the goal?
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
Create a read replica in a different Availability Zone and configure the application to fail over manually.
Read replicas improve read scaling, but manual failover and replication lag can still harm failover objectives.
B
Best answer
Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS DB instance so AWS manages a standby in another Availability Zone with automatic failover.
RDS Multi-AZ maintains a standby in another AZ and supports automatic failover, improving resilience and reducing manual work.
C
Distractor review
Switch the database to use EBS snapshots more frequently and restore in case of failure.
Snapshot restore is a backup/recovery approach and typically does not meet fast failover requirements.
D
Distractor review
Pin the DB to a specific instance type with higher CPU credits to prevent CPU-related disconnects.
Instance sizing affects performance but not AZ-level failover behavior or redundancy.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: usable hosts are not the same as total addresses
Subnetting questions often tempt you into counting all addresses. In normal IPv4 subnets, the network and broadcast addresses are not usable host addresses.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
Subnetting questions test whether you can identify the network, broadcast address, usable range, mask and correct subnet. Slow down enough to calculate the block size correctly.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
- Block size helps identify subnet boundaries.
- Network and broadcast addresses are not usable hosts in normal IPv4 subnets.
- The required host count determines the smallest suitable subnet.
TExam Day Tips
- Write the block size before choosing the subnet.
- Check whether the question asks for hosts, subnets or a specific address range.
- Do not confuse /24, /25, /26 and /27 host counts.
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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
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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?
Question 6
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?
CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS DB instance so AWS manages a standby in another Availability Zone with automatic failover. — RDS Multi-AZ is designed specifically to improve availability by creating a standby in a different Availability Zone within the same AWS Region. AWS handles synchronous replication and can automatically fail over to the standby when the primary fails, reducing downtime and operational burden. Creating only a read replica does not guarantee the same automatic failover semantics, and restore-from-snapshots is slower and less aligned with rapid failover objectives. Why others are wrong: Option A may help with read workload distribution, but it does not provide the same automatic failover behavior as Multi-AZ; manual switching and lag can extend outage. Option C treats availability as recovery from backups, which usually conflicts with “minimal manual intervention” and fast RTO goals. Option D addresses performance sizing, not redundancy across AZs.
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.
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