SAA-C03 Aurora Global Database Practice Question
A trading dashboard uses Aurora MySQL. The company wants fast cross-Region disaster recovery with low RPO. Which architecture should be considered? The architecture review board prefers a managed AWS-native control.
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse cross-Region replication with multi-AZ deployments, or assume that manual snapshots or caching solutions can meet low RPO requirements, when only a managed global database service like Aurora Global Database provides the necessary sub-second RPO and automated failover.
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
✓
Aurora Global Database
Aurora Global Database is the correct choice because it provides a managed, cross-Region disaster recovery solution with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 1 second and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of typically less than 1 minute. It uses storage-based replication to keep a secondary cluster in another AWS Region up to date with minimal latency, meeting the low RPO requirement without 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.
- ✗
A single-AZ Aurora cluster
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ design does not provide cross-Region DR.
- ✓
Aurora Global Database
Why this is correct
Aurora Global Database replicates with low latency to secondary Regions and supports faster disaster recovery than snapshot-only approaches.
- ✗
Manual snapshots copied monthly
Why it's wrong here
Monthly snapshots create high RPO and slow recovery.
- ✗
An ElastiCache Redis replica
Why it's wrong here
ElastiCache is not an Aurora database DR mechanism.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAA-C03 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SAA-C03 exam.