SAP-C02 Read Replica Practice Question
A company is designing a multi-account AWS environment for different business units. They need to share a central Amazon RDS database with read replicas in each account for disaster recovery. What architecture minimizes cross-region data transfer costs while maintaining high availability?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often mistakenly think that sharing a snapshot and restoring it creates a read replica, but snapshots are point-in-time and do not replicate ongoing changes. A true read replica requires continuous replication.
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
✓
Create a cross-region read replica in the central account and grant access to other accounts.
Creating a cross-region read replica in the central account and granting access to other accounts allows each account to have a local read replica that stays in sync with the source, providing high availability and disaster recovery while minimizing cross-region data transfer costs (since replicas are in the same region as the source? Actually, the replica is cross-region, so costs are incurred, but among the given options, this is the only one that uses actual read replicas for continuous replication. Option C is wrong because restoring a snapshot creates an independent instance that does not automatically sync with the source, so it does not meet the requirement for continuous replication and disaster recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a VPC endpoint to share the database across accounts without data transfer costs.
Why it's wrong here
VPC endpoints do not enable cross-account database sharing without replication, and they do not eliminate data transfer costs for RDS.
- ✓
Create a cross-region read replica in the central account and grant access to other accounts.
Why this is correct
This uses a cross-region read replica that can be accessed by other accounts, providing a continuously synced copy for disaster recovery. Although cross-region data transfer costs apply, it is the only option that uses a proper read replica.
- ✗
Share a snapshot of the RDS instance with each account and restore it as a read replica in the same region.
Why it's wrong here
Restoring a snapshot creates an independent database instance that does not stay in sync with the source; it is not a read replica and cannot be used for ongoing replication for high availability or disaster recovery.
- ✗
Create an IAM role in each account to access the central RDS instance directly.
Why it's wrong here
Creating IAM roles does not provide a local copy of the database in each account; direct access across accounts may involve high latency and does not meet disaster recovery requirements.
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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.