PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs a critical workload on Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL with Multi-AZ. The operations team notices that during a recent failover test, the DNS record updated in about 60 seconds. However, the application experienced a 2-minute downtime because some connections were not re-established quickly. What should the team do to reduce downtime during failover?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently think increasing DNS TTL speeds up failover, but in reality, a higher TTL increases client-side caching delay, making downtime worse, while the correct approach is to use a retry mechanism on the RDS endpoint to bypass DNS propagation issues entirely.
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 the application's connection string to use the RDS endpoint with a retry mechanism.
During a Multi-AZ failover, the RDS DNS record is updated to point to the standby instance. However, DNS caching at the client side can cause delays. By configuring the application to use a retry mechanism on the RDS endpoint, connections are re-established quickly after failover completes, without waiting for DNS TTL expiry. This reduces downtime compared to approaches that rely solely on DNS propagation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable automated backups with a short retention period.
Why it's wrong here
Backups are unrelated to failover connection handling.
- ✗
Increase the TTL of the RDS DNS record to 300 seconds.
Why it's wrong here
Higher TTL means clients cache old IP longer, increasing downtime.
- ✓
Configure the application's connection string to use the RDS endpoint with a retry mechanism.
Why this is correct
Using the read replica endpoint can redirect traffic faster; retries help re-establish connections.
- ✗
Place a Network Load Balancer in front of the RDS instance.
Why it's wrong here
NLB does not support RDS directly; adds unnecessary 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.