Aurora MySQL Multi-Region DR: Meeting 15-Minute RTO and 1-Minute RPO
A company is designing a multi-region disaster recovery solution for a critical application running on Amazon EC2. The application uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL database. The RTO is 15 minutes and RPO is 1 minute. Which THREE steps should the solutions architect take to meet these requirements?
Quick Answer
The answer is to use Amazon Aurora Global Database for replication to the DR region, pre-provision standby instances in the DR region, and configure Route 53 health checks with failover routing. Aurora Global Database is the correct foundation because it provides cross-region replication with an RPO of typically one second and failover in under one minute, directly meeting the 15-minute RTO and 1-minute RPO requirements. Pre-provisioning standby instances ensures compute capacity is available immediately after failover, avoiding cold-start delays, while Route 53 health checks enable automatic DNS failover to the DR region. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this question tests your ability to distinguish between Aurora features: a common trap is choosing snapshot restore (too slow) or cross-region read replicas (which require manual promotion and break the RTO). A useful memory tip is "Global for speed, pre-provision for capacity, Route 53 for automation"—the three pillars of a sub-15-minute DR plan.
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse cross-region read replicas (which have higher replication lag and slower promotion) with Aurora Global Database (which provides low-latency, fast failover), leading them to select Option C instead of Option E.
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
✓
Pre-provision EC2 instances in the DR region with the application code and configuration.
Pre-provisioning EC2 instances in the DR region with the application code and configuration ensures that compute capacity is ready to serve traffic immediately upon failover. This eliminates the time needed to launch and configure instances, which is critical for meeting the 15-minute RTO. Without pre-provisioning, the time to spin up and configure instances would likely exceed the RTO.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Pre-provision EC2 instances in the DR region with the application code and configuration.
Why this is correct
Ensures compute capacity is ready for failover.
- ✓
Use Route 53 health checks with failover routing policy to direct traffic to the DR region.
Why this is correct
Automates DNS failover to meet RTO.
- ✗
Configure a cross-region read replica in the DR region and promote it during failover.
Why it's wrong here
Promoting a read replica takes longer than 15 minutes.
- ✗
Take frequent snapshots of the Aurora cluster and copy them to the DR region.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshot restore takes too long (more than 15 minutes).
- ✓
Use Amazon Aurora Global Database for replication to the DR region.
Why this is correct
Aurora Global Database provides low-latency replication and fast failover.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SAP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is designing a new multi-region disaster recovery solution for a critical application running on AWS. The primary region is us-east-1. The application uses Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ, and runs on EC2 instances behind an ALB. The RPO must be less than 5 minutes, and RTO less than 30 minutes. The company wants to minimize costs when the DR solution is not in use. Which solution should a Solutions Architect recommend?
hard- A.Use RDS MySQL with cross-Region read replicas in us-west-2. Use a hot standby EC2 environment with a single instance. Use Route 53 failover routing.
- B.Back up RDS MySQL to S3 using automated snapshots and copy them to us-west-2. Use EC2 instances with S3-mounted volumes to serve traffic from the backup.
- C.Use RDS MySQL with Multi-AZ in us-east-1 and a second Multi-AZ deployment in us-west-2. Keep EC2 instances running in us-west-2 behind an ALB with cross-Region load balancing.
- ✓ D.Set up an RDS MySQL cross-Region read replica in us-west-2. Keep a standby EC2 environment with Auto Scaling configured to scale from 0 to minimum instances using a CloudWatch alarm on health checks. Use Route 53 failover routing to switch DNS to us-west-2.
Why D: A cross-Region read replica provides continuous asynchronous replication with RPO typically under a minute, satisfying the <5-minute requirement, while a standby EC2 environment scaled to zero via Auto Scaling keeps costs near zero when idle and can launch within the 30-minute RTO. Route 53 failover routing with health checks automates DNS cutover to us-west-2. This balances the RPO/RTO targets against the cost-minimization goal.
JA
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.