An application uses an Amazon Aurora cluster. The workload becomes read-heavy, but the team cannot change the database schema. They need higher read throughput while keeping writes on the primary. What should they do?

Switch the cluster to a single-AZ Aurora configuration to reduce coordination overhead

Single-AZ can affect availability and does not provide a read-scaling mechanism for throughput in the way read replicas do. It may reduce resiliency but does not directly increase the number of read-capable instances.

Increase DynamoDB capacity units instead of modifying the database layer

This scenario is specifically about Aurora (not DynamoDB). DynamoDB capacity changes do not affect Aurora query throughput because they are different database engines and storage layers.

Enable CloudFront caching for database queries to serve results from edge locations

CloudFront can cache certain HTTP responses (for example, API responses) but it is not a direct Aurora performance mechanism. It does not increase Aurora’s database read capacity; any benefit would depend on application-level caching design and correct cache invalidation strategies.

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Create Aurora read replicas and use the reader endpoint for read traffic — To increase read throughput in Aurora without schema changes, add read replicas (reader instances) and route reads to the reader endpoint. Aurora supports separate compute capacity for read scaling: writer instances handle writes, while reader instances can handle reads concurrently. Using the reader endpoint distributes read traffic across replicas, reducing contention on the primary and improving overall read throughput—exactly what is needed for a read-heavy workload with a schema-change constraint. Switching to single-AZ may affect availability and cost but does not address the core requirement: scaling read throughput. DynamoDB capacity is unrelated to Aurora. CloudFront caching can help at the application layer for cacheable responses, but it is not the database-level solution for increasing Aurora read capacity and is not guaranteed to be applicable to all query workloads.

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.