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mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A web application uses pooled JDBC connections to an Amazon Aurora cluster using the writer endpoint. During an Aurora planned failover, monitoring shows a short spike in failed requests. The Aurora cluster writer endpoint remains the same, but many existing pooled connections briefly fail. The application retries aggressively and overloads the new writer during the transition.

Which design change will most improve application resilience during Aurora failovers without requiring application redeployment?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
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A web application uses pooled JDBC connections to an Amazon Aurora cluster using the writer endpoint. During an Aurora planned failover, monitoring shows a short spike in failed requests. The Aurora cluster writer endpoint remains the same, but many existing pooled connections briefly fail. The application retries aggressively and overloads the new writer during the transition.

Which design change will most improve application resilience during Aurora failovers without requiring application redeployment?

Full question →

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Best answer

Add an RDS Proxy between the application and Aurora to manage database connections across failovers.

RDS Proxy terminates and manages client connections, while maintaining separate managed connections to the database. During a writer failover, the proxy can re-establish backend connections to the new writer, reducing failed pooled connections seen by the application and lowering retry pressure.

B

Distractor review

Change the Aurora cluster to Single-AZ to reduce failover events.

Single-AZ removes Multi-AZ protection for the database. This reduces resilience and can increase outage impact rather than improving failover transition behavior.

C

Distractor review

Increase the application thread count so more requests can be served while connections reconnect.

Increasing concurrency during a failover typically amplifies retry and connection churn. That can worsen overload on the new writer rather than smoothing transition effects.

D

Distractor review

Pin all database traffic to a specific instance hostname instead of the writer cluster endpoint.

During failover, the writer role moves to a different instance. Pinning to an instance hostname breaks availability because the pinned instance may no longer be writable after the role switch.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.

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.
  • Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.

TExam Day Tips

  • Underline the problem statement mentally.
  • 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.

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More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

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Question 2

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Question 3

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a IoT ingestion API. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Question 4

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Question 5

A team wants to delegate IAM management to developers, but must ensure developers can never grant themselves permissions beyond a specific limit. Which AWS mechanism best matches this requirement?

Question 6

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

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: Add an RDS Proxy between the application and Aurora to manage database connections across failovers. — Aurora failover interrupts or invalidates some existing database connections even when the writer endpoint remains the same. With pooled JDBC connections, clients can hold connections that become invalid during the transition, causing failures and aggressive retries. RDS Proxy improves resilience by sitting between the application and Aurora: it manages and re-establishes backend connections during failover so the application’s connection pool experiences fewer hard failures. This reduces retry storms and improves availability without redeploying the application. Why others are wrong: Moving to Single-AZ reduces availability and does not address the failover transition issue. Increasing thread count increases load and retry pressure during the period when connections are unstable. Pinning to an instance hostname undermines Aurora writer failover because the writable endpoint changes when the writer role moves. Only RDS Proxy directly targets connection-management behavior during failovers.

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.

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