SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A financial services company is designing a highly available architecture for a critical application on AWS. The application runs on EC2 instances and uses an Oracle database. The database must be resilient to an Availability Zone failure and must have automated failover. Which database solution meets these requirements?
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 RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment.
Amazon RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment provides automatic failover to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone, meeting the requirements for high availability and automated failover. Option A is incorrect because Amazon Aurora (MySQL-compatible) is not Oracle-compatible, so it cannot replace an Oracle database. Option B is incorrect because a Read Replica in another AZ does not provide automated failover; it is used for read scaling and requires manual promotion. Option C is incorrect because deploying Oracle on EC2 with asynchronous replication requires manual failover management and does not provide automated failover.
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 Aurora (MySQL-compatible) with Multi-AZ.
Why it's wrong here
Aurora is MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible and cannot run Oracle schemas or PL/SQL, so the existing database would need rewriting. Aurora Multi-AZ is genuinely highly available with automated failover, making it correct only when the engine is MySQL or PostgreSQL, not Oracle.
- ✗
Use Amazon RDS for Oracle with a Read Replica in another AZ.
Why it's wrong here
An RDS for Oracle Read Replica is asynchronous and read-only; it provides no automated failover, so promotion is manual and data loss is possible. Read Replicas serve read scaling. Multi-AZ Oracle, which maintains a synchronous standby with automatic failover, is the correct choice here.
- ✗
Deploy Oracle on EC2 in two Availability Zones and use asynchronous replication.
Why it's wrong here
Oracle on EC2 with asynchronous replication leaves failover entirely to custom scripting, so recovery is manual and recent transactions may be lost. EC2 hosting suits engine versions or options RDS cannot offer. RDS for Oracle Multi-AZ provides the synchronous standby and automated failover the scenario demands.
- ✓
Use Amazon RDS for Oracle with Multi-AZ deployment.
Why this is correct
RDS for Oracle Multi-AZ maintains a synchronous standby in a different Availability Zone and performs automated failover, so the database survives an AZ failure without manual intervention. This directly satisfies the resilience and automated failover constraints for the Oracle workload.
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