Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company hosts a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in a single AWS Region (us-east-1). The SysOps administrator needs to implement a Disaster Recovery (DR) solution using a different AWS Region (us-west-2). The DR plan requires a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. The application uses an Amazon Aurora MySQL DB cluster and static assets stored in an Amazon S3 bucket. Which combination of actions should the administrator take to meet these requirements?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
Create an Aurora cross-Region read replica in us-west-2. Configure S3 Cross-Region Replication from the source bucket to a destination bucket in us-west-2. During DR, promote the read replica to a primary cluster and update DNS.
A cross-Region read replica provides continuous replication for the database, achieving RPO seconds. Promoting it can be done in minutes, meeting RTO of 1 hour. S3 CRR replicates objects asynchronously, typically within minutes, satisfying the RPO.
B
Distractor review
Take a manual snapshot of the Aurora DB cluster every 15 minutes and copy it to us-west-2. Use S3 batch operations to copy assets to us-west-2 daily.
Manual snapshots every 15 minutes are not feasible due to the time and cost. Copying snapshots cross-Region adds delay, and RPO may exceed 15 minutes. Daily S3 copies do not meet the RPO.
C
Distractor review
Enable Aurora Multi-AZ in us-east-1 and configure S3 transfer acceleration to us-west-2.
Multi-AZ provides high availability within a single Region, not cross-Region DR. S3 Transfer Acceleration improves upload speeds but does not replicate data automatically.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication to a DB instance in us-west-2. Use S3 versioning to keep previous object versions.
DMS can be used but adds complexity and cost. Aurora read replicas are simpler and purpose-built for cross-Region replication. S3 versioning does not replicate to another Region; it only keeps versions in the same bucket.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create an Aurora cross-Region read replica in us-west-2. Configure S3 Cross-Region Replication from the source bucket to a destination bucket in us-west-2. During DR, promote the read replica to a primary cluster and update DNS. — For Amazon Aurora, the best approach for cross-Region DR with low RPO (15 min) is to create a cross-Region read replica in us-west-2. Aurora replication is continuous and typically has an RPO of seconds. To achieve RTO of 1 hour, the administrator can promote the read replica to a primary cluster during DR. For S3, Cross-Region Replication (CRR) can replicate objects to a bucket in us-west-2 with near-real-time RPO. Backups and snapshots are too slow. RTO with database snapshots can be >1 hour. CRR on S3 is asynchronous but typically well within 15 minutes.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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