SAP-C02 Cross-Region Read Replicas Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery solution for a critical application that runs on Amazon EC2 instances in a single AWS Region. The application uses an Amazon RDS for MySQL database. The company wants to achieve a recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 seconds and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 15 minutes. Which solution should the company use?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is that candidates assume Multi-AZ DB clusters support cross-Region standby instances, but Multi-AZ is limited to a single Region. They may also overlook that cross-Region Read Replicas use asynchronous replication and therefore cannot guarantee a 5-second RPO.
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
✓
Deploy RDS Read Replicas in another Region and promote them during a disaster.
Cross-Region Read Replicas for Amazon RDS MySQL use asynchronous replication, so they do not guarantee a 5-second RPO; replication lag can vary from seconds to minutes. However, among the options provided, D is the closest fit because the read replica can be promoted to a standalone primary database, and the other options fail to meet the RPO/RTO or are invalid. A strict 5-second RPO would be better served by Amazon Aurora Global Database, but D is the best available choice. Option A is invalid because RDS Multi-AZ DB clusters do not support a standby instance in another Region for MySQL. Options B and C do not meet the RPO/RTO requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure an RDS Multi-AZ DB cluster with a standby instance in another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. RDS Multi-AZ DB clusters do not support a standby instance in another Region for MySQL; cross-Region synchronous replication is not available.
- ✗
Use EC2 Auto Scaling to launch new instances in another Region and use an Application Load Balancer.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. This addresses compute scalability but does not replicate the database, failing to meet the RPO of 5 seconds.
- ✗
Take automated snapshots of the RDS instance every 5 seconds and copy them to another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Automated snapshots cannot be taken every 5 seconds; the minimum interval is 5 minutes, which would result in an RPO of at least 5 minutes.
- ✓
Deploy RDS Read Replicas in another Region and promote them during a disaster.
Why this is correct
Correct. Cross-Region Read Replicas use asynchronous replication, typically achieving an RPO of seconds, and can be promoted to primary within minutes, meeting both RPO and RTO requirements.
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