SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new multi-tier application on AWS. The web tier runs on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer. The database tier uses Amazon RDS for MySQL with a single Availability Zone deployment. The company requires that the application survive an Availability Zone failure with minimal downtime and no data loss. The database must automatically fail over to a standby instance in another Availability Zone. What should a solutions architect recommend to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that a read replica in another Availability Zone provides the same high availability as a Multi-AZ standby, but read replicas are asynchronous and require manual promotion.
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 the RDS DB instance as a Multi-AZ deployment with a standby replica in a different Availability Zone.
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments provide synchronous replication to a standby in another Availability Zone and automatic failover, ensuring high availability and durability. The other options either involve manual intervention, asynchronous replication, or are not designed for automatic failover with no data loss. Multi-AZ is the recommended approach for production databases requiring AZ resilience.
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 the database on an EC2 instance with a RAID 1 configuration across two Availability Zones using Amazon EBS snapshots.
Why it's wrong here
Running a database on EC2 with RAID across Availability Zones is not supported because EBS volumes are tied to a single Availability Zone. Snapshots are asynchronous and restoring them takes time. This approach is complex, error-prone, and does not provide automatic failover or zero data loss. It is not a managed high-availability solution.
- ✗
Create a read replica in another Availability Zone and promote it manually if the primary fails.
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas use asynchronous replication, so they can lag behind the primary. Manual promotion is required and may result in data loss. This does not provide automatic failover or zero data loss, and it increases operational overhead. Therefore, it does not meet the stated requirements.
- ✓
Configure the RDS DB instance as a Multi-AZ deployment with a standby replica in a different Availability Zone.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ deployment creates a synchronous standby replica in a different Availability Zone. In the event of a failure, Amazon RDS automatically fails over to the standby, typically within 60–120 seconds, with no data loss because replication is synchronous. This meets the requirements for high availability and durability without application changes.
- ✗
Enable automated backups with a retention period of 35 days and restore from the latest snapshot if a failure occurs.
Why it's wrong here
Automated backups allow point-in-time recovery, but restoration creates a new DB instance and can take significant time. This approach does not provide automatic failover and will result in downtime and potential data loss since the last backup. It does not satisfy the minimal downtime and no data loss requirements.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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