SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A financial services company is designing a multi-tier application that must achieve a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes for a database tier. The application uses Amazon RDS for MySQL with Multi-AZ deployment. Which disaster recovery strategy meets these requirements at the LOWEST cost?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Multi-AZ (high availability within a Region) with cross-Region disaster recovery, or assume that Aurora Global Database is always the best choice for low RPO without considering cost constraints, leading them to overlook the simpler and cheaper cross-Region read replica option that still meets the specified RPO of 15 minutes.
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 of the RDS MySQL instance in another Region. In a disaster, promote the read replica to a standalone instance.
A cross-Region read replica for Amazon RDS MySQL provides asynchronous replication with an RPO typically under 15 minutes, and promoting it during a disaster can achieve an RTO of 1 hour. This approach incurs only the cost of the replica instance and cross-Region data transfer, making it the lowest-cost option that meets the stated RTO and RPO requirements.
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 RDS instance in Multi-AZ configuration and take frequent snapshots to another Region.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ does not protect against Region failure; cross-Region snapshots would not meet RPO of 15 minutes if taken less frequently.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication to an RDS instance in another Region.
Why it's wrong here
DMS can replicate but adds cost and complexity; not the lowest cost option.
- ✗
Use Amazon Aurora Global Database, which provides global replication with typical RPO of 1 second.
Why it's wrong here
Aurora Global Database is more expensive than using RDS read replicas.
- ✓
Create a cross-Region read replica of the RDS MySQL instance in another Region. In a disaster, promote the read replica to a standalone instance.
Why this is correct
Cross-Region read replicas provide asynchronous replication with low RPO, and promotion takes minutes, meeting RTO at lower cost than other solutions.
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Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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