A production application writes to an Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL cluster. Users report that during business-hour reporting runs, write latency increases. The application team wants to keep the writer focused on OLTP writes while still providing low-latency reads for reporting queries. What architectural approach should the solutions architect recommend?

Resize the writer instance to a larger class so it can handle both writes and reads with fewer slowdowns.

Scaling the writer can reduce contention, but it doesn’t separate read traffic and can increase cost and still keep mixed workloads on the writer.

Enable cross-region replication for the entire cluster so reporting always runs in the secondary Region.

Cross-region replication is useful for disaster recovery or geographic reads, but it adds complexity and may not address local business-hour contention efficiently.

Disable read replicas and use caching only in the application layer, keeping all queries connected to the writer endpoint.

Application caching might help repeated reads, but it doesn’t prevent all reporting queries from competing with writer resources when cache misses occur.

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Create Aurora read replicas and direct reporting read-only connections to the cluster reader endpoint. — To reduce write latency caused by reporting reads, the architect should offload reporting workloads to read replicas. Aurora read replicas handle read-only queries, preserving writer resources for OLTP writes. Directing reporting to the cluster reader endpoint (or the replica endpoints) ensures that read traffic goes to replicas instead of the writer. Options that resize the writer or keep reporting on the writer do not achieve workload isolation, and cross-region replication may be overkill for the specific performance problem described. Why others are wrong: Resizing the writer treats symptoms and can keep mixed workload contention on the same endpoint, which may still impact write latency. Disabling replicas and relying only on application caching doesn’t guarantee performance during reporting runs when many queries are not cache hits. Cross-region replication addresses resilience/geography but is not the most targeted solution for business-hour read/write contention within a single Region.

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.