This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design resilient architectures. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A payments API requires point-in-time recovery and accidental-delete protection for a DynamoDB table. Which two settings should the architect enable?
Deletion protection or tightly controlled delete permissions
Deletion protection and least-privilege controls reduce accidental table removal risk.
Point-in-time recovery
PITR allows restoration to a specific second within the supported recovery window.
Global secondary indexes
Why wrong: GSIs support query access patterns but do not protect against data loss.
DAX
Why wrong: DAX improves read performance but does not provide recovery.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Deletion protection or tightly controlled delete permissions
Deletion protection (Option A) prevents accidental table deletion by blocking DropTable API calls unless explicitly disabled, which is essential for protecting the payments table from human error or automated scripts. Point-in-time recovery (Option B) enables continuous backups with 35-day granularity, allowing restoration to any second within that window to recover from accidental writes or data corruption. Together, these settings satisfy both the point-in-time recovery and accidental-delete protection requirements for the DynamoDB table.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Deletion protection or tightly controlled delete permissions
Why this is correct
Deletion protection and least-privilege controls reduce accidental table removal risk.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Point-in-time recovery
Why this is correct
PITR allows restoration to a specific second within the supported recovery window.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Global secondary indexes
Why it's wrong here
GSIs support query access patterns but do not protect against data loss.
DAX
Why it's wrong here
DAX improves read performance but does not provide recovery.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse operational features like GSIs or DAX with data protection mechanisms, mistakenly thinking they provide recovery or deletion safeguards when they only serve performance or query optimization roles.
Detailed technical explanation
Point-in-time recovery in DynamoDB is enabled per table and automatically backs up data with per-second granularity for the last 35 days, using incremental snapshots stored in S3. Deletion protection is a table-level setting that, when enabled, causes the DeleteTable API call to fail with a ValidationException, and it can only be disabled via the AWS Management Console, CLI, or SDK with appropriate IAM permissions. In a real-world scenario, a misconfigured CI/CD pipeline could accidentally drop a production table; deletion protection acts as a safety net, while PITR ensures you can restore to a state just before a malicious or erroneous write operation.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Design Resilient Architectures — This question tests Design Resilient Architectures — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Deletion protection or tightly controlled delete permissions — Deletion protection (Option A) prevents accidental table deletion by blocking DropTable API calls unless explicitly disabled, which is essential for protecting the payments table from human error or automated scripts. Point-in-time recovery (Option B) enables continuous backups with 35-day granularity, allowing restoration to any second within that window to recover from accidental writes or data corruption. Together, these settings satisfy both the point-in-time recovery and accidental-delete protection requirements for the DynamoDB table.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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