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Question 771 of 1,040

Design Resilient Architectures →mediumMultiple SelectObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is to create a health check and associate it with the primary endpoint, and configure a failover routing policy with primary and secondary records. This works because Route 53’s failover routing policy lets you designate one record as the primary and another as the secondary; when the health check attached to the primary endpoint reports it as unhealthy, Route 53 automatically routes traffic to the secondary record in the other region. On the SAA-C03 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how to combine health checks with routing policies to achieve multi-region disaster recovery, and a common trap is forgetting that the health check must be associated with the primary record, not the secondary. A useful memory tip is “primary gets the probe, secondary gets the load”—the health check monitors the primary, and failover shifts traffic to the secondary only when the primary fails.

SAA-C03 Design Resilient Architectures Practice Question

This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design resilient architectures. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 SaaS application is deployed in us-east-1 and us-west-2 behind separate ALBs. The business wants DNS to send new clients to the primary Region when it is healthy and automatically fail over to the secondary Region when the primary endpoint is unhealthy. Which two Route 53 settings are required? Select two.

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

Question 1mediummulti select

Read the full DNS explanation →

A
Use a failover routing policy with a primary and secondary record.
Failover routing is designed specifically to send traffic to a secondary endpoint when the primary becomes unhealthy.
B
Create a health check and associate it with the primary endpoint.
Health checks give Route 53 the signal it needs to decide when the primary endpoint should stop receiving answers.
C
Use weighted routing with a 50/50 traffic split between both Regions.
Why wrong: Weighted routing distributes traffic, but it does not automatically fail over based on endpoint health.
D
Use latency-based routing so clients always choose the fastest Region.
Why wrong: Latency-based routing optimizes performance, but it is not the same as primary-secondary failover behavior.
E
Use a geolocation policy without health checks.
Why wrong: Geolocation routes by user location and still requires additional health-aware design for automatic failover.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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

✓

Use a failover routing policy with a primary and secondary record.

A failover routing policy is correct because it allows you to designate one record as primary and another as secondary. Route 53 will route traffic to the primary record as long as it is healthy, and automatically fail over to the secondary record when the primary is unhealthy. This directly meets the requirement to send new clients to the primary region when healthy and fail over to the secondary region.

Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✓
Use a failover routing policy with a primary and secondary record.
Why this is correct
Failover routing is designed specifically to send traffic to a secondary endpoint when the primary becomes unhealthy.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Create a health check and associate it with the primary endpoint.
Why this is correct
Health checks give Route 53 the signal it needs to decide when the primary endpoint should stop receiving answers.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use weighted routing with a 50/50 traffic split between both Regions.
Why it's wrong here
Weighted routing distributes traffic, but it does not automatically fail over based on endpoint health.
✗
Use latency-based routing so clients always choose the fastest Region.
Why it's wrong here
Latency-based routing optimizes performance, but it is not the same as primary-secondary failover behavior.
✗
Use a geolocation policy without health checks.
Why it's wrong here
Geolocation routes by user location and still requires additional health-aware design for automatic failover.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse failover routing with weighted or latency-based routing, thinking any multi-region setup with health checks will automatically fail over, but only failover routing policy provides the explicit primary/secondary failover behavior required.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, Route 53 failover routing works by associating a health check with the primary record. The health check periodically sends requests (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP) to the endpoint; if the health check fails, Route 53 marks the primary record as unhealthy and starts responding to DNS queries with the secondary record's IP address. The DNS TTL (default 60 seconds) controls how quickly clients pick up the change, but cached resolvers may delay failover slightly.

KKey Concepts to Remember

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.

TExam Day Tips

Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.

Key takeaway

Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

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

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Design Resilient Architectures — This question tests Design Resilient Architectures — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Use a failover routing policy with a primary and secondary record. — A failover routing policy is correct because it allows you to designate one record as primary and another as secondary. Route 53 will route traffic to the primary record as long as it is healthy, and automatically fail over to the secondary record when the primary is unhealthy. This directly meets the requirement to send new clients to the primary region when healthy and fail over to the secondary region.

What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "primary". Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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Same concept, more angles

1 more ways this is tested on SAA-C03

These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.

Variation 1. A SaaS application is deployed in us-east-1 and us-west-2 behind separate ALBs. The business wants DNS to send new clients to the primary Region when it is healthy and automatically fail over to the secondary Region when the primary endpoint is unhealthy. Which two Route 53 settings are required? Select two.

medium

✓ A.Use a failover routing policy with a primary and secondary record.
✓ B.Create a health check and associate it with the primary endpoint.
C.Use weighted routing with a 50/50 traffic split between both Regions.
D.Use latency-based routing so clients always choose the fastest Region.
E.Use a geolocation policy without health checks.

Why A: A failover routing policy is correct because it allows you to designate one record as primary and another as secondary. Route 53 will route traffic to the primary record as long as it is healthy, and automatically fail over to the secondary record when the primary becomes unhealthy. This directly meets the requirement to send new clients to the primary region when healthy and fail over automatically.

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Question Discussion

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