PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is designing a disaster recovery (DR) strategy for a critical application that runs on EC2 instances in a single AWS Region. The application uses an Amazon RDS MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. The company wants to achieve a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 minute and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 15 minutes for both compute and database tiers. Which TWO options should the company implement? (Choose TWO.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse cross-Region automated backups (Option E) with cross-Region read replicas, not realizing that backups have a higher RPO and longer restore times, while read replicas provide near-real-time replication and faster 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 a cross-Region read replica for the RDS MySQL DB instance in the secondary Region
A cross-Region read replica for RDS MySQL can be promoted to a standalone primary in the secondary Region within minutes, meeting the 15-minute RTO. The asynchronous replication lag is typically under 1 minute, satisfying the 1-minute RPO. This provides a managed, low-latency DR database tier without needing to restore from backups.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Configure a cross-Region read replica for the RDS MySQL DB instance in the secondary Region
Why this is correct
A cross-Region read replica can be promoted to a primary in seconds, meeting the RPO of 1 minute.
- ✓
Create Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of the EC2 instances and copy them to the secondary Region
Why this is correct
Pre-copied AMIs enable quick launch of EC2 instances in the DR Region, helping meet the RTO.
- ✗
Use Amazon EBS snapshots of the EC2 instances and copy them to the secondary Region every minute
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots are not designed for minute-level frequency and cannot achieve an RPO of 1 minute.
- ✗
Migrate the database to Amazon Aurora MySQL and configure an Aurora Global Database
Why it's wrong here
Configuring an Aurora Global Database is primarily designed for disaster recovery across multiple AWS Regions, providing very low RPO and RTO for cross-region failover. The scenario describes an application running within a single AWS Region and does not specify a requirement for multi-region resilience. While Aurora MySQL itself offers excellent RPO/RTO within a single region, the "Global Database" component is specifically for inter-region replication. This option is tempting because Aurora Global Database delivers exceptional RPO/RTO for databases, making it an ideal choice when a multi-region DR strategy is the explicit goal.
- ✗
Enable cross-Region automated backups for the RDS Multi-AZ DB instance
Why it's wrong here
Automated backups are for point-in-time recovery, not for low RPO replication; they are typically scheduled every 5 minutes.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 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 PAS-C01 exam.