SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse a read replica (asynchronous, manual promotion) with Multi-AZ (synchronous, automatic failover), or assume that frequent backups or instance sizing improvements can substitute for a dedicated high-availability standby.
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
✓
Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS DB instance so AWS manages a standby in another Availability Zone with automatic failover.
Enabling Multi-AZ for the RDS DB instance creates a synchronous standby replica in a different Availability Zone. AWS automatically handles failover to the standby with no manual intervention required, meeting the goal of fast database failover with minimal manual intervention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a read replica in a different Availability Zone and configure the application to fail over manually.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas improve read scaling, but manual failover and replication lag can still harm failover objectives.
- ✓
Enable Multi-AZ for the RDS DB instance so AWS manages a standby in another Availability Zone with automatic failover.
Why this is correct
RDS Multi-AZ maintains a standby in another AZ and supports automatic failover, improving resilience and reducing manual work.
- ✗
Switch the database to use EBS snapshots more frequently and restore in case of failure.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshot restore is a backup/recovery approach and typically does not meet fast failover requirements.
- ✗
Pin the DB to a specific instance type with higher CPU credits to prevent CPU-related disconnects.
Why it's wrong here
Instance sizing affects performance but not AZ-level failover behavior or redundancy.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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