SOA-C02 Reliability and Business Continuity Practice Question
A company runs a critical MySQL database on an Amazon RDS DB instance in a single Availability Zone. The SysOps administrator needs to implement a disaster recovery solution with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 1 hour, while minimizing costs. Which solution meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse cross-Region read replicas (asynchronous, higher RPO) with cross-Region automated backups (log-based, lower RPO), or assume Multi-AZ provides cross-Region disaster recovery when it only covers AZ failures within a single Region.
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
✓
Enable cross-Region automated backups to another Region
Cross-Region automated backups replicate transaction logs to another AWS Region with a typical lag of a few minutes, enabling point-in-time recovery (PITR) that can meet an RPO of 5 minutes. When a disaster occurs, you can restore the automated backup to a new DB instance in the destination Region, and the RTO depends on the restore time, which can be under 1 hour for a properly sized instance. This solution minimizes costs by avoiding the continuous compute and storage overhead of a standby replica or read replica.
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 Multi-AZ deployment with a synchronous standby replica in another Availability Zone
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ deploys a synchronous standby in a different Availability Zone within the same Region, so it only protects against an AZ failure, not a regional outage that takes all AZs offline. Since the standby is still within the same regional boundary, it cannot provide the cross-Region disaster recovery specified in the RTO/RPO requirements. This option addresses availability during an AZ loss, not durability across a full Regional disaster.
- ✗
Create a cross-Region read replica and promote it to a standalone DB instance during a disaster
Why it's wrong here
A cross-Region read replica asynchronously replicates data to a separate Region and can achieve a low RPO of seconds, but it is a running instance that incurs continuous compute and storage costs in the DR Region. During failover, you must manually or automatically promote the replica, and the promotion time can easily exceed the required 1-hour RTO, especially if replication lag exists at disaster time. Additionally, the read replica remains read-only until promoted, so it does not provide an automatic, pre-tested DR failover mechanism.
- ✓
Enable cross-Region automated backups to another Region
Why this is correct
Enabling cross-Region automated backups continuously replicates both automated snapshots and transaction logs to a chosen destination Region without running any compute resources there. This service-managed feature provides a typical RPO of about 5 minutes because transaction logs are shipped frequently, and an RTO of under 1 hour by restoring the latest snapshot and rolling forward logs. Since you only pay for storage in the destination Region until you actually perform a restore, this is the most cost-effective and operationally simple way to meet the stated DR requirements.
- ✗
Take daily automated snapshots and copy them to another Region manually
Why it's wrong here
Taking daily automated snapshots and manually copying them to another Region gives a recovery point that is at most 24 hours old, which far exceeds the required 5-minute RPO. While snapshot copying is a valid backup approach for coarse-grained DR, it is not an automated, continuous replication mechanism and does not include transaction log replay, so you could lose up to a full day of committed transactions. The manual copy step also introduces operational overhead and potential for error, but the primary reason this option fails is the unacceptable RPO.
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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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SOA-C02 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 SOA-C02 exam.