PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is running SAP NetWeaver on AWS with an Oracle database on an EC2 instance. The database uses Oracle Data Guard for disaster recovery across Regions. The primary database is in us-east-1, and the standby is in us-west-2. The database size is 500 GB and the network link between Regions has about 100 Mbps throughput. During a recent disaster recovery drill, the failover to the standby took over 2 hours because the Data Guard redo logs were not fully applied. The team wants to reduce the recovery time objective (RTO). They are considering using Amazon S3 to store archived redo logs, increasing the bandwidth, or using a different replication method. What is the MOST effective action to reduce the 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
✓
Increase the network bandwidth between the Regions to reduce redo log shipping lag.
Increasing the bandwidth between Regions will reduce the lag in redo log shipping, allowing the standby to apply logs more quickly and be ready faster. Option A is incorrect because storing archived logs on S3 still requires transferring them to the standby. Option B is incorrect because EBS replication does not apply to cross-Region scenarios. Option C is incorrect because ASM is a storage management layer, not a replication solution.
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 the primary database to automatically archive redo logs to Amazon S3, and have the standby download them from S3.
Why it's wrong here
This still involves data transfer over the network and may not reduce the time to apply logs.
- ✗
Use Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) to mirror data across Regions.
Why it's wrong here
ASM is for local storage management, not cross-Region replication.
- ✗
Replace Oracle Data Guard with Amazon EBS snapshot replication across Regions.
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots are not database-consistent for Oracle without additional steps and cannot be used for real-time replication.
- ✓
Increase the network bandwidth between the Regions to reduce redo log shipping lag.
Why this is correct
Higher bandwidth reduces the time to transfer redo logs to the standby, allowing it to apply logs faster and be ready for failover sooner.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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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.