Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group across three Availability Zones in us-east-1. The application stores data in an Amazon RDS for MySQL DB instance with Multi-AZ deployment. The SysOps administrator needs to design a disaster recovery strategy that can recover from a complete regional outage. The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is 2 hours and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is 1 hour. Which solution should the administrator implement?
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
Distractor review
Create a read replica of the RDS instance in a second region. Configure an Amazon CloudFront distribution with the ALB as origin. Use Route53 failover routing policy to route traffic to the CloudFront distribution.
CloudFront is for content delivery, not DR failover. Promoting a read replica requires manual steps, increasing RTO beyond 2 hours.
B
Distractor review
Take daily manual snapshots of the RDS instance and copy them to a second region. Store the AWS CloudFormation template for the infrastructure in an S3 bucket with cross-region replication. In the event of a disaster, manually deploy the stack and restore the snapshot.
Manual snapshots and deployments are too slow to meet the 2-hour RTO. Also daily snapshots may not meet the 1-hour RPO.
C
Best answer
Configure cross-region automated backups for the RDS instance with a backup window. Deploy an identical infrastructure stack in a second region using AWS CloudFormation StackSets. Create an Amazon Route53 DNS failover record set with health checks to automatically fail over to the second region.
Cross-region automated backups (with a 1-hour backup window) can meet RPO. StackSets ensure consistent infrastructure deployment. Route53 failover automatically redirects traffic, meeting RTO.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) to continuously replicate data to a second region. Use an Application Load Balancer in the primary region and a Network Load Balancer in the secondary region. Create a Route53 weighted routing policy to distribute traffic.
Weighted routing does not automatically failover; it distributes traffic based on weights. DMS adds complexity and cost. This solution does not provide automatic failover for a regional outage.
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: Configure cross-region automated backups for the RDS instance with a backup window. Deploy an identical infrastructure stack in a second region using AWS CloudFormation StackSets. Create an Amazon Route53 DNS failover record set with health checks to automatically fail over to the second region. — Option C provides automated cross-region backup (AWS RDS automated backups can be cross-region with a lag, but for RPO 1 hour, need more frequent; but cross-region automated backups have a backup window of 1 hour, could meet RPO). StackSets deploy infrastructure consistently. Route53 failover with health checks can automatically redirect traffic. Option A uses read replica, but failover would require promoting replica, and CloudFront with ALB origin is for content delivery, not DR failover. Option B manually is too slow for RTO 2 hours. Option D uses DMS continuous replication which can achieve low RPO, but weighted routing is not automatic failover. C is the best combination for automated DR with minimal manual intervention.
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.
Discussion
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