PAS-C01 Migration Practice Question
A company is migrating a multi-tier application to AWS and wants to ensure high availability. The application has a web tier, application tier, and database tier. The database is currently running on a single on-premises server. Which migration strategy minimizes downtime and provides the HIGHEST availability for the database tier?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often think migrating to a single-AZ RDS with snapshots is sufficient for high availability, but they overlook that Multi-AZ is required for automatic failover and that DMS should be used for the migration itself, not as an afterthought.
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 AWS DMS to migrate the database to Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment.
AWS DMS can perform a live migration with minimal downtime by continuously replicating changes from the source database to the target Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment. Multi-AZ provides automatic failover to a standby replica in a different Availability Zone, ensuring the highest availability for the database tier. This combination minimizes downtime during migration and provides built-in high availability post-migration.
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 AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate to Amazon RDS in a single-AZ deployment, then manually take snapshots.
Why it's wrong here
Single-AZ RDS does not provide automatic failover; manual snapshots lead to longer downtime.
- ✗
Migrate the database to a single large Amazon EC2 instance using AWS Application Migration Service.
Why it's wrong here
A single instance is a single point of failure, no high availability.
- ✓
Use AWS DMS to migrate the database to Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployment.
Why this is correct
DMS can perform the initial migration with minimal downtime, and RDS Multi-AZ provides synchronous standby for automatic failover, ensuring high availability.
- ✗
Migrate to Amazon RDS with Multi-AZ deployment and use DMS for initial load.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is used for initial migration, but Multi-AZ provides HA; however, DMS is not needed if using native RDS restore, but this option is plausible but not the best because DMS adds complexity.
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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.