SAP-C02 Multi-AZ Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on Amazon RDS for MySQL. They want to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy across AWS Regions with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 second and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 minute. Which TWO strategies meet these requirements? (Choose TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that cross-Region read replicas are often mistaken for a valid DR solution, but their manual promotion process prevents meeting a 1-minute RTO.
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
✓
Use Amazon Aurora Global Database with a primary in one Region and a secondary in another Region.
Amazon RDS Multi-AZ does not support cross-Region standby; it only provides high availability within a single region. Option C is correct: Amazon Aurora Global Database offers synchronous cross-Region replication with automatic failover, typically achieving an RPO of less than 1 second and RTO of 1 minute, although it requires migrating from RDS MySQL to Aurora. Option D is incorrect: AWS DMS with continuous change data capture (CDC) uses asynchronous replication, which cannot guarantee a 1-second RPO. Option B is incorrect because manual snapshots every hour cannot achieve an RPO of 1 second. Option E is incorrect because cross-Region read replicas use asynchronous replication, so RPO is not guaranteed to be 1 second, and manual promotion takes longer than 1 minute.
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 Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment in the primary Region with a standby in another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Amazon RDS Multi-AZ does not support cross-Region standby; it only provides high availability within the same region. Therefore, it cannot meet the cross-Region DR requirement.
- ✗
Take manual snapshots of the RDS instance every hour and copy them to another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Manual snapshots taken every hour have an RPO of up to one hour, far exceeding the required 1 second RPO.
- ✓
Use Amazon Aurora Global Database with a primary in one Region and a secondary in another Region.
Why this is correct
Correct. Amazon Aurora Global Database provides synchronous cross-Region replication and automatic failover, achieving an RPO of 1 second and RTO of 1 minute. This requires migrating from RDS MySQL to Aurora but is a valid strategy.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication to another Region.
Why it's wrong here
AWS DMS with CDC can replicate data across Regions with low latency, but it is asynchronous and cannot guarantee a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 second. Therefore, it does not meet the strict RPO requirement.
- ✗
Configure cross-Region read replicas for RDS MySQL.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Cross-Region read replicas for RDS MySQL use asynchronous replication, so the RPO is not guaranteed to be 1 second. Additionally, promoting a read replica to a primary instance is a manual process that typically takes longer than 1 minute, failing the RTO requirement.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,660 original SAP-C02 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.