SAP-C02 Continuous Improvement for Existing Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery strategy for a critical application that runs on Amazon EC2. The application data is stored on Amazon EBS volumes and Amazon RDS for MySQL. The recovery time objective (RTO) is 2 hours, and the recovery point objective (RPO) is 1 hour. Which THREE steps should the company take to meet these objectives?
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 cross-region replication for the RDS instance using a read replica.
To achieve RTO of 2 hours and RPO of 1 hour, the company should combine RDS cross-region read replicas (option A) for near-real-time replication, RDS automated backups (option D) for point-in-time recovery, and EBS snapshots every hour with cross-region replication (option E) for EC2 instances. Option A provides asynchronous replication to another region. Option D allows restoring to any point within the retention period. Option E ensures EBS volumes can be recovered in another region. Option B (AWS DMS) is typically used for database migrations, not as a primary DR replication method. Option C is incorrect because creating AMIs every hour is inefficient and does not provide the required RPO for data; EBS snapshots are more appropriate.
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 cross-region replication for the RDS instance using a read replica.
Why this is correct
Provides a standby in another region with low RPO.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is for migration, not DR; replication may introduce latency.
- ✗
Create AMIs of the EC2 instances every hour.
Why it's wrong here
AMIs do not include data stored on EBS volumes that are not root volumes.
- ✓
Enable automated backups for the RDS instance with a retention period of 1 hour.
Why this is correct
Allows point-in-time recovery within RPO.
- ✓
Schedule EBS snapshots every hour and replicate them to another region.
Why this is correct
Meets RPO of 1 hour and provides cross-region recovery.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.