SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery solution that must recover an application in a different AWS Region within 15 minutes of a failure. The application uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster. Which combination of strategies will meet the recovery time objective (RTO) while minimizing costs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse Aurora Global Database (which is designed for low RTO but higher cost) with a simple cross-Region replica (which offers a slightly higher RTO but significantly lower cost), and they overlook the 15-minute RTO requirement that both can meet, making cost the deciding factor.
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
✓
Configure an Aurora cross-Region replica in the DR Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to fail over DNS.
An Aurora cross-Region replica asynchronously replicates data to a DR Region with minimal performance impact, and you can promote it to a standalone cluster within minutes. Combined with Amazon Route 53 DNS failover, this achieves an RTO under 15 minutes while keeping costs low, as you only pay for the replica storage and minimal compute until failover.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deploy a standby Aurora cluster in the DR Region and use synchronous replication.
Why it's wrong here
Deploying a standby Aurora cluster with synchronous replication is incorrect for cross-Region disaster recovery. Aurora's synchronous replication operates strictly within a single AWS Region for high availability, not across Regions due to inherent latency constraints. While synchronous replication offers excellent data consistency and low RPO, making it ideal for intra-Region high availability with automatic failover, cross-Region disaster recovery requires asynchronous replication methods like Aurora Global Database or snapshot copying to meet an RTO of 15 minutes.
- ✗
Use Aurora Global Database with a secondary cluster in the DR Region.
Why it's wrong here
Global Database has a typical RTO of 1 minute, but the cost is higher due to the secondary cluster; cross-Region replicas are cheaper.
- ✓
Configure an Aurora cross-Region replica in the DR Region. Use Amazon Route 53 to fail over DNS.
Why this is correct
Cross-Region replicas provide fast failover (typically <1 minute) and are cost-effective as they only replicate data.
- ✗
Take daily snapshots and restore them in the DR Region using cross-Region snapshot copy.
Why it's wrong here
Restoring from a snapshot can take longer than 15 minutes and data loss may be up to 24 hours.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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